


A Wilderness of Mirrors

by KageOtogi



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Blink and you'll miss it, Frostiron Bang 2015, I am one thousand percent done with this fic, Loki Has Issues, Supervillain Tony Stark, bad science is bad, forced togetherness, it's so long how did that even happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageOtogi/pseuds/KageOtogi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Tony wants to do after the fallout from Ultron is further damage his reputation, but when Loki escapes from Asgard, the only way to save the day is to become a supervillain himself. It turns out the dark side isn't everything it's cracked up to be, though, and Tony finds himself facing off against an even greater threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The thing is, now that they've retrieved Loki's staff, rounded up most of Hydra's leftover hoodlums, and dealt with the whole Ultron debacle, Tony doesn't really spend all that much time with the Avengers. He catches up with them now and then, sure, just to check in and make sure no one has triggered any potentially world-ending, cataclysmic events, but otherwise he sticks to his solo Iron Man gig and leaves well enough alone. He has more than enough on his plate, what with the media fallout post-Sokovia—apparently it's _his_ fault that his global defense system became sentient, went completely off the rails, and tried to annihilate the human race—and he knows the Avengers will let him know if, for some reason, they need him.

That's why, when Steve calls him out of the blue and tells him to meet the gang at the new SHIELD-run facility, he knows better than to blow it off and Skype in, as tempting as it is.

The new facility doesn't look like much, and it being in the middle of nowhere means Tony can't take his private jet to it without being incredibly conspicuous, so he resorts to flying there in one of his stealthier Iron Man suits. When he arrives, he takes the time to store his suit in a safe place before he goes to the door and punches in an access code—an access code, honestly, in the age of artificial intelligence and helicarriers. What is this, the nineties?—and walks right in.

Clint is there, leaning against the wall and apparently waiting for him; when Tony walks in, he straightens and pushes his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Hey. About time you showed up."

"Well, you know, traffic at this time of day is the worst." He adjusts the cuffs of his sleeves. "So they dragged you out here, too?"

Clint shrugs. "It's not so bad. I figure I can sacrifice a few days of paternity leave in exchange for a good night's sleep away from home."

Right, new baby. Tony had forgotten about that. "My invitation didn't say anything about a slumber party. Is Steve holding out on me? If I'd known, I'd have brought Captain America pajamas for everybody."

"Hey, if you're there, how are we going to give each other makeovers and talk about you behind your back?" Clint jerks his head toward a hallway. "C'mon, everyone is congregating down this way."

"It's not a surprise party or anything, is it? It's not even my birthday."

Clint barks a short laugh. "Like we could throw anything that could compare to a Stark party. Sorry. As far as I know, it's all business."

Tony frowns. "As far as you know, huh? So they haven't told you anything either?"

"Nope. I'm just as in the dark as you are." Clint leads him to a door at the end of the hall and punches in another access code to open it. He goes in first. "Got him."

Steve stands up. "Good, then we're all here."

'All' apparently means Steve, Natasha, Clint, Tony, Maria Hill, and Thor, who Tony had assumed was still up in Asgard. They're clustered around a conference table that is slightly too big for the room it's in, and Thor is crammed into a chair that is considerably too small for him. It makes for a pretty funny picture, but Tony regardless makes a mental note to get in SHIELD's database and add 'chairs that a demigod can sit in comfortably' to their shopping list.

Natasha nudges a chair out for Clint, leaving the chair by Steve, near the head of the table, open for Tony, and he takes it as he finishes surveying the room. He has to give SHIELD a little credit, he'll admit; for all that the facility doesn't look like much on the outside, they did a halfway decent job on the inside. Three of the four walls in the room are digitized to project images and look to be holograph-capable, and if the tablet Hill is fiddling with is any indication, it looks like this meeting is going to have an audio-visual component. Tony is a sucker for good AV. So is another Avenger, but...

"Bruce is still MIA?" he asks, already sure he knows the answer.

Hill shakes her head. "There's been no sign of him since we found the Quinjet, but we're keeping an ear to the ground. We'll find him soon."

Clint and Natasha exchange a look, but neither says anything and no one comments on it. Instead, Steve nods to Hill, who swipes a few things on her tablet and projects what looks like a cell phone video onto the wall.

"Loki is back," Steve says—somewhat unnecessarily given the footage, which shows Loki walking down the street of some urban metropolis Tony only half-recognizes. London, maybe? It's a little hard to tell. "On Earth."

Clint frowns. "No Chitauri though, right? Big deal. He's not the easiest to tackle, but we can handle him all right. What are we waiting for? Let's take him down and get him back to Asgard where he belongs."

Steve looks to Thor, who shakes his head. "I'm afraid it is not as simple as that," he says. "When Loki made his escape from Asgard—"

Tony interrupts. "Hold up. Last time your brother came up in conversation, you said he was dead. What happened to him being dead?"

Thor's jaw tightens. "It would seem Loki took the opportunity to play on my sympathy and on my grief and has been living in Asgard unbeknownst to any of us."

"Yeah, okay, that sounds like him," Tony says. "But for two years? I mean, I know you weren't there the whole time, so don't think I'm trying to pin this one on you, but come on. Two whole years and no one realized he was lurking around?"

Thor continues in lieu of clarifying. "When I confronted him, he came at me. We fought, but he retreated before we could strike final blows, and he departed Asgard. Not, however, before stopping in the dungeons and releasing scores of prisoners."

Clint frowns. "I don't think I like where this is going."

Hill shakes her head. "What do you mean by 'scores', Thor?"

"Our prison records are not as precise as I might have liked, so I cannot be entirely certain. At least eighty." Thor pauses. "We assume they accompanied Loki here from Asgard."

For a long moment, the room is silent. Then, finally, Tony speaks up.

"Are you trying to tell us that Loki brought eighty-some escaped Asgardian convicts with him to Earth? Because that's what I'm getting from this."

Thor shakes his head. "No, of course not."

Tony exhales. "Okay. Good."

"The majority are not Asgardian at all," Thor says, as though that is supposed to make everything better, "and we captured and re-imprisoned fourteen of them before they could complete the journey here."

"Right, because that's definitely good news. Sixty-six escaped convicts—plus Loki—is way more manageable. Definitely." Tony drums his fingers on the table and watches the thirty seconds of cell phone footage looping on the screen across from him. "It looks like he's alone here."

"That has something to do with interdimensional space travel," Steve says. "Thor tried to explain it earlier. You might understand it better than I did."

"I don't quite understand the mechanics of it myself," Thor admits. "Such intellectual pursuits have always been more of interest to my brother."

"Essentially," Steve continues, "once Loki is through, he can arrange it so the rest of them show up anywhere he wants, whenever he wants."

Tony frowns and drums his fingers against the table as he tries to puzzle out the physics behind that. If he assumes Loki's form of space travel follows suit with the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theories they've more or less confirmed fit into the mechanics of the Bifrost, it sort of makes sense. "It would have to be sooner rather than later, though, right? Hanging out between worlds can't be exactly safe."

Thor nods. "Yes, I believe you are right."

Clint holds up a hand. "Hold up. As far as we know, it's still just Loki here so far. Big deal. Let's just grab him before he can bring the other guys through. Problem solved, right?"

Steve nods. "That's the plan, for now, but thinking long term..."

"They'd probably get through eventually with or without Loki's help," Tony ventures. "Not right away, and probably not all of them would survive the trip, but a good number would. And there's no way of knowing where they'd wind up."

"It could be anywhere in the nine realms," Thor agrees. "Regardless, I doubt Loki will wait long before calling on his new allies. I've reason to think he is after the Infinity Stones, and he will know I am in pursuit of him. He will act quickly to gather them while he has the chance."

Natasha frowned. "The Infinity Stones?" she repeats.

"Whatever they are, I'm guessing they're more than just rocks," Tony says.

"They are gems containing great power," Thor explains. "There are six in all. Loki's staff contained one, although it is now in possession of the Vision. The Tesseract is another. I encountered a third in my battle against the dark elves, and I've heard rumors of something that might be another on the far reaches of the cosmos. I know not where to find the remaining stones, but it is not likely a coincidence that they are making themselves known now."

Tony rakes his fingers through his hair. "So what happens if Loki manages to collect them all?"

They all ignore Clint's humming the Pokemon theme song, and Thor shakes his head. "I do not know if Loki knows how to manipulate the stones, or if he knows how to wield them to their full potential. Regardless, the consequences of his coming into possession of the stones would be dire, for all of the realms."

Steve nods. "That's why it's in our best interest to round up Loki fast, before he brings in any reinforcements. Once he does—"

"Guys," Hill interrupts, stabbing at her tablet. "We may have been too optimistic. Look."

She swipes up and the footage of Loki on the screens is replaced by more cell phone footage—lots of footage, all playing at once—of what looks like wormholes opening up in various cities. Tony does recognize some of these—there's New York, Paris, Tokyo—but there are even more that he doesn't. And, from every wormhole, there are creatures—not men, because no one would mistake these things for human—pouring out of them and, as soon as they have their feet on solid ground, disappearing into nothing.

Everyone is silent. After the footage starts to loop, Hill shuts it off and the screens all go black.

Natasha is the first to speak. "Should we proceed to Plan B?"

Steve nods. "We talked about this before the rest of you showed up," he explains, taking his seat again. He clasps his hands together and rests them on the table, leaning forward. "Natasha believes we can't go after just a few of these guys without tipping off Loki, and we can't go after just Loki without the rest of them knowing and potentially going rogue and causing even worse trouble. I think she's right."

"So, what?" Clint says. "We just take them all on at once? Look, I can do a suicide mission now and then no problem, but we're starting to make them into a regular thing and I haven't gotten around to updating my life insurance policy yet."

Natasha shakes her head. "Going at them head-on would only make things worse. Instead, we'll take them down from the inside."

Clint furrows his brow. "If you're going where I think you're going with this..."

She doesn't confirm or deny it, but she continues for everyone else's benefit. "Loki is setting up an operation on what is relatively unfamiliar territory for him. He's been here before, but not long enough to really get the lay of the land. If he wants to stay under the radar, he needs someone who knows how to live in the modern world to work with him."

"An undercover agent," Hill says. The vague sense of awe in her voice implies this is the first time she's heard this plan; somehow, that isn't at all comforting, considering she's second-in-command of the biggest, baddest spy ring in the business. "You want someone to infiltrate Loki's base by pretending they're on his side."

"That's right." Steve looks to Thor. "We'll need to know everything you can tell us about Loki.  How he thinks, what he looks for in his allies, everything."

Thor shifts uneasily in his seat—although, given the tiny chair, he might just be losing feeling in parts of his body and moving to try and get the blood flowing again—but he nods. "Of course. I'll give you what I can."

"Good. Tony, you'll work with SHIELD to pinpoint Loki's location. Once we know where he is, Natasha will—"

"Hold up," Tony interrupts. "You're sending in Natasha?"

Steve hesitates, clearly not sure why Tony is asking. "Yes."

"Yeah, no. That's a stupid plan." He lifts up his hands before anyone can protest. "Don't get me wrong, I get it. She's trained in this sort of thing. She's the best." He glances in Natasha's direction. "That's right, Agent Romanoff, you heard me. I said you were the best. You can mark it in your calendar if you want."

"Maybe later," she answers.

Tony goes on. "But here's the thing: Loki _knows_ she's the best. If she waltzes in on him, subterfuge is going to be the first thing on his mind, and he'll probably kill her. I think it goes without saying that him killing her isn't good for her, it isn't good for us, and, long term, it's not exactly good news for life as we know it."

Steve frowns. "So what do you suggest?"

Tony looks around the table. "Well, Thor's no good. Clint probably wouldn't get a pass, either. I mean, you're good, Clint, but Loki's got to know you're still pissed about the whole mind control thing a few years ago."

"Damn right I am."

"Steve, the idea of you trying to team up with a supervillain reads like a bad joke. Bruce would be good, maybe, because he's got that honest face. Plus, there's no chance Loki could kill him. But since we can't find him, our best bet is probably someone Loki doesn't already know. How are the newbies shaping up?"

"I'm not going to send in one of the recruits," Steve says. "Colonel Rhodes is here under the supervision of the US military. Not only does he outrank me, but I don't have that kind of authority. Sam thinks fast, but he's never run into Loki before. I'm not sure how he'd do. And Wanda and the Vision, well... They're still pretty raw."

Hill hesitates. "There are the others..."

"Skye's team?" Natasha shakes her head. "They're not ready, either. They've barely started training, and you know what the guys on the bus would say about it if we put them out there like that." She glances in Tony's direction. "Pending any other bright ideas, that just leaves you."

Tony laughs. "Yeah, funny. No way. I'm pretty sure that's not going to fly, either. I'm not exactly the evil villain type. Maybe we can outsource this. Who do we know?"

"Actually," Hill hedges, "you do have something of a history. Not as a criminal, but the weapons manufacturing didn't exactly make you a lot of friends."

"I gave that up."

"And became Iron Man," Natasha points out. "Essentially, a one-man band of weaponry."

"Yeah, but for justice and stuff."

Natasha shrugs. "Maybe, but you do make a lot of enemies in that suit."

"Including the press," Clint offers. "They really hate you right now, man."

"The press loves me."

Hill raises her eyebrows. "I can pull up at least a dozen editorial pieces that say otherwise. Most of your headlines aren't favorable at the moment."

"Yeah," Clint agrees. "Know what the headline was last week? 'Tony Stark: Hitler of the modern age.' Hitler, man. You got compared to Hitler."

Steve makes a face. "That's terrible."

"Shock factor, Cap." Clint shrugs and leans back in his seat. "It sells."

Thor frowns. "I don't understand. Why is Tony facing such criticism?"

"There are all kinds of rumors going around that Tony is going back into weapons and stuff," Clint explains. "Some of the more outrageous networks are saying he's testing them on people. They think that's what he was trying to do with Ultron."

"That's ridiculous," Thor says. "Ultron was merely an error in judgment."

"Right? Thor gets it. My intentions were pure. That's got to count for something."

Clint goes on as though Tony hadn't said anything. "Yeah, but you know what they say about leopards changing their spots."

Thor tilts his head a bit. "I do not, actually."

"They say they don't do it." Clint looks back at Tony. "Look, we all know you're not a bad guy, but a lot of people are questioning you right now, and seeing as how Loki was sort of into you back when he first came to Earth, it's actually kind of perfect."

It takes a second for that to sink in, and then Tony bolts up in his seat. "I'm sorry, what did you just say? He was what?"

Clint shrugs. "Like, not in a creepy school kid crush kind of way. He just thought you were interesting, I guess."

"How has this not come up before? What the fuck, Clint?"

"Sorry, man. I guess it just never seemed all that important until now."

Thor makes a thoughtful noise. "It does make some sense," he says. "Loki has always appreciated those with wit and a sense of humor, and you do possess those qualities in some abundance. He was very fond of Alfheim's residents for that same reason, and of flyting. He would likely consider you a worthy opponent."

"Flyting?" Hill asks.

"It is a game. The players insult each other in verse. It can be very entertaining, and Loki is something of a master." Thor smiles. "His biting tongue and quick turn of phrase are legendary on realms extending beyond Asgard."

"Right, well, the witty banter aside, you're also a pretty powerful guy," Clint says. "I mean, if I was going to make a power grab and try to take over the world, you'd probably be in my top ten list of people to either take down or get on my side. You'd maybe even be in my top five."

Tony doesn't want to admit it, but that's vaguely flattering. And a little insulting. He should at least make the top three. "We're getting off track here."

"We are," Steve agrees. "But, Tony, they do have a point. You might actually be perfect for this. You have a history of making rash decisions, and with all the backlash you've been getting lately, it's not completely unreasonable to think you might try to team up with Loki. It doesn't hurt that you're a known Avenger, either. Loki might see that as an advantage, if you can convince him that you really have split with us."

"He's not going to believe that," Tony says, a bit aghast. Loki, after all, is a pretty smart guy—at least, Thor has made him sound like a smart guy—and Tony knows firsthand that he's pretty damn perceptive, not to mention batshit crazy. One wrong move and Tony could find himself on the wrong end of a knife, and that's a best-case scenario.

Then again, Steve's right, too: if he can pull this off—if he can somehow convince Loki that he's turned tailcoat and is out to get revenge on the team that did him wrong—then maybe he's got a shot. And it's not like he hasn't set the revenge precedent before. Iron Man was more or less born from his wanting to get even with somebody, and it wasn't all that long ago that he gave a known criminal mastermind his home address just for the chance to even the score when a friend of his got hurt. So... Maybe, if he can put the right spin on all this, this could work.

That said, he's not going to put any money on it. He's played at enough casinos to know better than to place a bet that large, no matter what the stakes.

Not that it's ever stopped him from playing, of course.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Maybe this could work. I mean, the odds aren't good, but it is possible. Maybe. There's an outside chance. A slim one."

Steve nods his approval. "We'll make sure you have everything you need," he promises. "Natasha will give you some basic training. We'll set you up with a wire so that we can listen in and you can call for backup if you—"

"Whoa," Clint interrupts. "You really want to put him on a live comm? If Loki or any of his goons see that, it's a dead giveaway. They're not even going to ask questions. They'll know he's a spy and they'll take care of him in a second. Right, Nat?"

Natasha shrugs one shoulder. "I've never worn a wire."

"You've never needed to," Steve reasons. "Tony hasn't done anything like this before."

"I can have FRIDAY keep tabs," Tony offers. "Forward you anything important."

Steve shakes his head. "It's better if you don't reach out to any of us. This is risky enough without adding another layer."

"Exactly why he shouldn't wear a wire," Clint says.

"He's completely inexperienced," Steve argues, "and he's trying to deceive Loki. There are a thousand things that could go wrong."

"Hey now," Tony says. "Let's think about this for a second. All you need me to do is convince Loki to let me on his team and then get enough of his trust that I figure out how to take down his entire operation, right?"

Steve frowns, considering him. "Right..."

"I have tons of experience."

"Tony..."

"I do. I was CEO of a multi-million dollar company," he points out. "What do you think that job description entails, exactly? Because trust me, it's not that far off."

"How do you figure?" Clint asks.

"I used to get information on companies all the time so that I could take them apart and merge them with Stark Industries. I had to kiss a lot of corporate flunky ass to do it sometimes, too, until I really made a name for myself. Pretending to be whoever it is they want you to be to get something done? Piece of cake. I do it all the time."

"I don't know..." Steve hedges.

He sighs. He really didn't want to drudge this back up, but... "Plus there was that time I was being held hostage in Afghanistan and convinced the guys there I'd build them a bomb," he reminds them. "You should have seen the looks on their faces when they caught a glimpse of my battle armor. You know, the Mark I? Maybe you've heard of it? It was kind of a big deal."

The team seems to consider that a moment, and then Clint lets out a low whistle. "Maybe you should have been a supervillain after all," he says, and Tony thinks he hears a hint of admiration in his voice. He's only slightly concerned by it.

Thor nods his head. "This is good," he says. "You are like Loki in some ways. That may give you something of an advantage."

Tony decides he really doesn't want to know why Thor thinks he and Loki are anything alike. Really, he doesn't. "Won't that give him an advantage, too?"

Thor laughs. "That is precisely the sort of question he would ask," he says. "Yes, this will work fine. I'm certain of it."

Steve furrows his brow. "No wire, then. Are you sure you're okay with that, Tony?"

"Do I have a choice?" He shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Thor thinks it'll work. Let's all think like Thor." Tony isn't nearly as confident, of course, but, hey, he's done harder things. He can't really think of any at the moment, but he's sure he has. And besides, he's Tony Stark. He's more or less made a career out of doing things that should be impossible; this will just be one more to add to this list.

Steve watches him for a good thirty seconds without saying a word, and then he settles back in his seat. "All right, we'll try it. Let's get to work finding Loki so we can get started."

"Yeah," Tony agrees. "The sooner we find him, the sooner we get this over with."

One way or the other.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding Loki is easier said than done, which is a little frustrating giving how easy it was to track him down the last time they were going after him, back before New York. Loki seems to have changed strategies since then and has gone into hiding instead of running around to torment the general populace. Regardless, Tony helps SHIELD set up some general facial recognition software to scan and monitor all cell phone videos and news feeds and then calls it a day. He accepts Steve's offer to house him there for the night and tries not to think too hard as to what Loki's new modus operandi might mean for him and his undercover operation.

It keeps him awake, though: What else has Loki changed? Last time they met, he gave Tony the opportunity to talk and keep him occupied for a bit while everyone else got into place. Back then, Loki had almost seemed eager for the conversation. This time, will Loki even give him the chance to speak, or will he decide he's a threat and kill him on sight?

The more he thinks about it, the harder it is to sleep, and Tony winds up abandoning his room altogether and going to the gym instead—not to use the equipment, of course, but because he knows Rhodey likes to work out at weird hours of the day and Tony trusts his odds.

Sure enough, Rhodes is there and lifting an obscene amount of weight, the show off. Tony stands near the door.

"Come on," he shouts across the gym. "My grandmother can do better than do that. Do you even lift?"

Rhodes sort of crab-steps a bit to get a better look at Tony and frowns. "Tony? What are you doing here?"

"Heckling you."

"Obviously." Rhodes does one more repetition before he abandons his workout, toweling his face off on his way to join Tony. "Seriously, though, what are you doing here?"

Tony shrugs and gives Rhodey some space to cool off. "You know, super important meeting. Superhero stuff. The big leagues. Don't worry, you'll get there someday."

"Ahuh. Did they call you in for tech support?"

Tony clutches his hand to his chest—a gesture that was really more effective before he had the arc reactor and all that shrapnel removed, making it way, way harder to fake a spontaneous heart attack. "Is that all you think I'm good for? I'll have you know I have five or six doctorates shoved in the back of a drawer somewhere. Probably only one of them is honorary."

"Three, and I know. I was there." Rhodes tosses his used towel into a bin. "Seriously, though, the network here suffers from extreme lag. I haven't been able to figure it out. Maybe you'd have better luck."

"It's probably all the spyware." He pauses, then grins. "Get it? Spyware?"

"It's great how you think you're funny."

"I am funny."

"Trust me, Tony. You aren't funny."

"I'm hilarious. Everyone says so."

"You're not and they don't, but I know you aren't going to admit it so I'm just going to change the subject." He reaches past Tony to retrieve a bottle of water and twists off the cap. "What was your big league superhero meeting all about?"

"You. Every second of it was about you. I even got to see some of your training footage. Tell me, what was it like, getting beat up by a girl half your age?"

Rhodes shakes his head. "Like MIT all over again. You have no idea, Tony. Wanda, man, she's little, but she's tough."

Tony rubs at the back of his head, remembering. "I've got some idea."

"Yeah." Rhodes drinks more of his water, watching Tony from the corner of his eye. When he finishes his drink, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "All right, dish. What are you really doing here?"

"You can't get involved," Tony warns. "I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be some kind of super top secret information. You probably aren't even supposed to know about it."

"Too late now."

"Yeah." Tony shrugs. "Still, I mean, it's not that big a deal. Loki's back, that's all, and I'm going undercover to infiltrate his Evil League of Evil. See if I can locate his hideout, suss out his evil plan... You know, that kind of thing."

Rhodes frowns at him. "You're going to pretend to be a bad guy?"

"A supervillain," Tony corrects. "I mean, a villain because Loki's got standards, and super just because I'm super at everything, so..."

"You're kidding me. That's never going to work."

Tony shrugs. "I don't know, the rest of the team seems to think it's got a chance."

Rhodes twists the cap back on his water bottle. "What do _you_ think?"

He was hoping Rhodey wouldn't ask him that, honestly, but since he did... "I don't know. I guess I don't know enough about Loki to really judge. I mean, maybe. Thor seemed to think I had a shot, and he knows Loki pretty well, right?"

"Not well enough to know where he is without you going undercover," Rhodes points out. "And didn't he tell us Loki was dead?"

"Yeah, Thor is kind of falling for the fake death thing a lot—this is the second time since I've known him, I kid you not. It's a little sad, for all kinds of reasons. Maybe we should sign him up for some kind of 'how to tell if someone is really dead' course. Is Wilson still into teaching, or...?"

"I'm not sure EMT training is really Sam's thing." Rhodes picks at the plastic label on his water bottle as he thinks. "I guess you do have a bit of an advantage, at least."

"I do?"

"Sure." He shrugs. "You're probably just as unpredictable as he is. He's not going to be able to read you any better than you can read him. That might work in your favor."

That is a little reassuring, although it really doesn't do anything to make Tony more confident in his ability to infiltrate Loki's defenses. "You think so?"

"Sure. And, worst case, you could always resort to your fallback plan."

He's almost afraid to ask, but... "Which is?"

Rhodes offers him a half-smile. "Remember what you did that time your board of directors threatened to toss you out of your own company?"

"Kind of. I slept with a couple board members, right?"

"Bingo."

"I was twenty-four. Doesn't count."

Rhodes shakes his head. "It counts, Tony."

Tony wrinkles his nose. "Whether it counts or not, doesn't matter. That is not my fallback plan."

"Really? What about that time you almost got thrown in a French jail cell for being drunk and disorderly? Or when that reporter—what's her name, the one with the funky hair who was with that magazine for a while—started asking you questions about your dad and you weren't having any luck dodging them?"

Tony waves his hand dismissively. "You're completely off base. I didn't sleep with any of them for the sole purpose of getting my way."

"Didn't hurt, though."

"Well, no," he admits. "But it still wasn't a _plan_. It just happened to work out that way."

"That's fine, Tony. No one here is judging you for it. All I'm saying is that maybe, if things start to go really south, you should just do what comes naturally." He pauses. "Which seems to be sex, for you. In case I wasn't clear on that."

"Don't be a jerk, Rhodes, or I'll tell Wanda you were picking on me and get her to come out here and beat you up."

Rhodes raises his hands, smiling. "Hey, you know I'm kidding. Just, you know, be careful out there, all right? Don't make it so I have to come in and save your ass again."

"You wish."

"Yeah, yeah." He discards his empty water bottle. "So what did Pepper say when you told her?"

Tony hesitates. "Well..."

"You haven't told her?"

"Not exactly," Tony admits. If he's being totally honest with himself, the whole Pepper situation is getting kind of complicated, but Rhodey definitely doesn't need to know that. It's easier to just shrug it off. "It's not that big a deal. Not yet, anyway. We've still got to find the guy, and who knows how long that could take. Once we find him, then I'll tell her."

Rhodes frowns. "Are you serious right now? You don't think he's going to suspect something is up if you just walk in asking for a job?"

"Yeah, that does seems a little suspect. What are you thinking?"

"I think you've got to make him come to you. Give him a reason to think you might be willing to get on his side."

Tony nods, considering that. "Maybe some kind of big, public fight? It won't do much for my reputation, but that's pretty much in the toilet as it is."

Rhodes shrugs. "Not the first time. You always bounce back. Whatever you do, you've got to tell Pepper about it before you do anything else. Don't give her ulcers like you give me."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll call her."

"In the morning, though," Rhodes says, steering Tony out of the gym and toward the elevator. "It's still the middle of the night."

"She's used to it, trust me."

"Man, you don't need to tell me that. I've gotten enough drunk calls from you at two, three in the morning to know. Sober calls, too. You've really got to get a watch. I know you can afford one."

"I have a watch. I just do it because I know you lie awake at night waiting for me to phone you."

Rhodes shakes his head and punches the button for the elevator. "Get some sleep, Tony. Or at least spend the time figuring out what you're going to tell your girlfriend."

"Don't say that word. We're not using that word."

Rhodes shrugs. "Well, whatever she is, she's not going to be thrilled about all of this."

"I don't know, she might really enjoy the time away from me. We can't exactly be dating if I'm pretending to be a supervillain, right? That'd ruin the whole thing. Pepper definitely doesn't go for the bad boy type."

"Nah, the tin man is definitely more her speed," Rhodey agrees, and he pushes Tony into the elevator when it opens. "Get out of here. And don't spend all night watching security footage, either. I think there's a thing where Sam gets beat up by an ant, but otherwise it's not all as interesting as Wanda kicking the shit out of me."

Tony offers up a grin. "You're just saying that because you don't want me to see the footage of you getting your ass handed to you by Steve. Too late, buddy."

Rhodey groans. "Oh, come on..."

"So tell me, what's worse? Getting beat up by a girl half your age or getting beat up by a ninety-year-old man who literally has his hands tied behind his back?"

The elevator doors start to close, and instead of answering the question, Rhodes flips him off. It's enough to make Tony laugh, and he's still chuckling when the doors open again. His good humor quickly fades away, though, when he catches sight of Steve, who seems to have been waiting for him—he straightens as soon as the doors open and gestures for Tony to follow him. Tony frowns, but he does.

"What is this, Insomniacs Anonymous?" he asks. "Does anyone actually sleep around here?"

"I already slept," Steve says, as though that explains anything, and he opens a door to one of the bedrooms—Steve's room, presumably, although the complete lack of anything resembling a personal touch makes it a little hard to tell. "Sit down."

Tony stays standing. "What's this about? Did someone die?"

"No one died."

"Right, okay, that's great. So are you stalking me for fun, or...?"

Steve shakes his head and sits on the edge of his bed. "I talked to Clint after we all met today to find out what he remembers about working with Loki while he was under his control. I wanted to brief you so that you know exactly what it is you're getting into before you fully commit to this."

Tony frowns. "Yeah, that's great, but, one, I already sort of thought we'd settled this. I'm the best choice to go, so I'm going. And two, shouldn't Clint be the one giving me a crash course in Loki 101? You know, so I get it straight from the source?"

"We agreed it might be better coming from someone less emotionally involved," Steve explains. He tries a half-smile. "That, and I didn't really want to make him relive it twice if he didn't have to. You'll have to make do with me."

Tony decides to take that chair after all—this might take a while. He pulls out Steve's desk chair and collapses into it, trying not to look like he's been up half the night worrying about his foray into villainy despite his just reassuring Steve that he's ready to take this on. "All right," he concedes. "Lay it on me. What did Clint have to say?"

Steve rubs his palms together. "It seems as though the most disturbing aspect of the experience was that, at the time, Clint really wanted to be part of Loki's plan. It was probably at least in part because of the staff, but he did make a point of reminding me that Loki is manipulative. Thor agreed. Loki is very good at making people do what he wants without them realizing it, or without them really understanding what it is they're doing. You're going to have to be careful."

"I'm always careful."

"You really aren't."

Okay, so, to be fair, he did just set his workspace back in Malibu—his practically new, completely rebuilt, still smells (well, smelled) like new workspace—a little bit on fire because he forgot to turn off a soldering iron once he was done using it, so Steve probably does have a point. Still, he hasn't ever let his guard down around a person, not since everything that happened with Obadiah. Or, well, with Natasha, back when she was posing as Natalie Rushman. Or with Killian. Or...

All right, so sometimes he lets his guard down. It happens. But he knows not to do that with Loki—he already knows the guy is bad news, so he definitely knows better than to let him creep in under his defenses. He doesn't care how manipulative Loki is, or how good he is at getting other people to do his dirty work: Tony Stark doesn't play that game. Not when he knows it's being played.

"I'll be careful," he promises. "What else you got?"

"Unfortunately, not a whole lot. Loki knows what he's doing. He tends to cover his tracks, and he compartments everything so that he's the only one who knows how all the puzzle pieces fit together. Clint seemed to think he keeps himself ignorant of some things, too, just to make sure he can't be the weak link. It'll make things hard for you when you start trying to figure out what exactly he's up to."

"That's okay. I like a challenge. Sometimes I take things apart, mix all the pieces together, and then try to put them back just to see if I can do it."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Can you?"

"Most of the time. Sometimes I kind of make it up and hope for the best. Other times I wind up with extra pieces."

"That actually explains a lot about our living situation back at the tower," Steve muses. "I always wondered why the toaster oven doubled as a radio."

"Yeah, that wasn't one of my better moments, but it was handy, right? You always had something to listen to while you waited for your breakfast." Tony spreads out in his seat, taking up as much space as possible. "Don't worry. I'll get my hands on Loki's toaster, take it apart, and then get it all back in one piece. And that's not a euphemism, by the way."

Steve makes a face. "I wasn't taking it as one until you said that, thank you."

"Really? Because Clint would have taken it as one. Rhodey, too." He tries not to cringe as he remembers Rhodey's assessment of his fallback plan. His friend has a point, yes, okay, but come on. He doesn't always solve problems with his dick. If he did, he'd probably have more to worry about than Loki. Like paternity suits. And a slew of STDs.

Steve watches him. "You sure you're okay doing this?"

"Well, someone has to."

"It doesn't have to be you."

Tony shrugs. "Unless you've got a better someone in mind and ready to go, I'm pretty sure I'm what we've got. We'll make it work."

Steve nods. "I know you will," he says. "Did you get the locator program set up?"

"Yeah. Everything's working just like it should."

"Good. The sooner we find Loki, the better. I don't know how much time we have, so we should get you out there and talking to him as soon as we can."

Ah, right. He'd almost forgotten. Tony leans forward in his seat, toward Steve. "About that..."

***

Tony calls Pepper on his way to Baltimore, and she picks up after just the second ring.

"What did you do?"

"Hey now. What makes you think I did anything? Also, what happened to a good old-fashioned 'hello'? Phone etiquette is truly dead."

Pepper sighs. "Hello, Tony," she says. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I mean, not yet. I'm flying to the East Coast for the morning. Avengers business, that sort of thing."

"Why? What's going on, Tony?"

"Oh, you know, same old same old. Just a heads up, I'm about to blow up a couple buildings. Everything's fine, I'm fine, don't believe everything you hear on the news, I haven't lost my mind. I'm just destroying public property, that's it. Totally legitimate. And trust me, have you ever been to Baltimore? A lot of those buildings deserve to be blown up. I hear they built a gigantic hotel right by the baseball stadium, totally ruined the skyline. I might aim for that first."

Pepper is silent for a beat, and then she sighs. "Is this because of the media? Tony, I can put a public relations team on this if you really want me to. We can spin the Ultron glitch in your favor. I won't lie to you, it will take a while, but we can make this right. Eventually. Although that fight you had this morning with Steve—it made the news, by the way—isn't going to help your case."

"Save that thought for later. I might rain check it. This? This is a global security thing. It's definitely not about my ego." He pauses. "I mean, it might be a little bit about my ego, because isn't everything? But not entirely. Global security. I'm just trying to get someone's attention."

"Whose?"

"You're not going to like it."

"I don't like that you're going to blow up a building. You do a lot of things I don't like," she says. "Who is it?"

"Loki."

Something shatters in the background. Tony winces. Pepper hisses something that might be moderately creative profanity, then says, "Loki? The Loki who tried to take over the planet a few years ago? That Loki?"

Hoo boy. Here it comes. "FRIDAY, put the suit on autopilot." He waits until his AI responds in the affirmative, then shakes his head. "Pep, hey, it's fine. I've got this."

"The last time he was here, you nearly died!"

"That was then, this is now. It's okay. It's totally different this time. See, I'm trying to make him think I'm on his side. Which reminds me. How do you feel about dating a supervillain? Good, bad, somewhere on the ambivalent side?"

"You're not doing this."

"Well, see, I am, actually." He takes a second to examine a readout on his comm screen. Nothing important; he lets it slide away. "I mean, it's this or sit by and watch the world end, so... Here I am."

"But why does it have to be you?"

"There weren't really a lot of other people volunteering to do it, so..."

"You _volunteered_?"

"It's complicated."

"You're going to get yourself killed."

"What? Nah. I can handle tall, dark, and crazy. Don't worry about me."

"It's not that I'm worried about," Pepper says. "You're posing as a villain, Tony. What happens when the good guys come after you?"

He frowns. "The team knows what's going on."

"The Avengers aren't the only vigilantes out there."

"You've got a point there. But don't worry about it. I'll keep my guard up." Tony lands hard on a street in downtown Baltimore and takes a look around. He's at the harbor, which is a pretty big tourist spot, but it's still pretty early and it's a Saturday morning, besides, so he's mostly sure there aren't a lot of people around. That's good. He doesn't want to have to keep an eye out for innocent bystanders on top of everything else. "So are we good? Because I sort of have some stuff to wreck."

There's a long pause before Pepper answers. "Sometimes I miss the days when the only things I had to worry about were covering up your multitude of personal scandals and you being hungover at board meetings."

"You don't mean that."

"I really do."

"I'm hurt, Pep. Really." He starts up a repulsor. "You didn't answer my supervillain dating potential question."

She sighs. "I don't know what you want me to say, exactly."

"Nothing, don't worry about it. We're going to be on radio silence for a bit, though, is that okay? I mean, I know you'll miss the sultry sound of my voice, but it's better than getting you dragged into something by accident, so..."

"It's fine," she says as he trails off. "Just... Don't get hurt, Tony, all right?"

"Sure thing, Pep. Absolutely." He lets the call drop, and then he grits his teeth, aims his repulsor at what his infrared sensors tell him is an empty office building, and fires. The building crumbles and the ground shakes beneath Tony's feet. He waits for the tremors to stop before he takes a step back, scans another building, and aims again.

Something hits him square in the back and he skids forward and has to crouch to keep from losing his balance altogether. Once he stops skidding, he gets to his feet and shakes it off, turning around to face War Machine.

Right on time.

"Come on, Tony," Rhodey says. "We don't want to fight you."

Tony raises his arm again, firing up the repulsors. "Sure you don't, I know," he says. "I don't blame you. If I were you, I wouldn't want to fight me, either. No one likes to be on the losing side." He lets out a breath and punctuates his sentence by firing off another repulsor blast.

Steve jumps in and uses his shield to deflect the beam. Tony doesn't see where it goes, but he trusts Steve's aim enough that he doesn't worry. "Iron Man, stand down," he says, a little too stiffly but hopefully still convincingly enough. "Or we will take you down."

All right, Steve's acting needs some work, but it looks like it's show time. Tony raises both arms and activates the missiles. "We'll see about that."


	3. Chapter 3

The press eats it up. By the time Tony retreats to his Malibu home and the morning news really gets started, Iron Man is the lead story, and Tony's face—or, rather, his armor's faceplate—is attached to horrific lead lines like 'Tony Stark takes the charm out of Charm City,' 'Iron Man is going rogue,' and 'Are the Avengers breaking up?'.

It's exactly what they were trying to do, so mission accomplished, but it's still kind of depressing—although, on the upside, it's better than being compared to Hitler. Tony tries not to watch the screen as yet another perky news anchor describes in all too vivid detail his confrontation with Captain America and War Machine and recounts the number of buildings Tony managed to completely demolish in that time, and he concentrates very hard on nursing his second cup of coffee instead. Hopefully—hopefully—their little farce works and Loki seeks him out, although he knows Steve and the others are probably working out a backup plan in case this doesn't pan out like they hope it will, and that's totally fine. Just because they all sort of suck at contingency plans is absolutely no reason to worry.

A report that paints him in a particularly heinous light—which, really, isn't shocking, considering the source isn't all that fond of him to begin with—starts to play and Tony cringes and turns his head to stare out at the ocean.

What he should do, probably, is turn off the TV, go downstairs, turn on some really loud music, and bang at something with a hammer. It won't make the sick feeling that he's ruined everything he's tried to build up since coming back from Afghanistan go away, but maybe it will distract him from it for a little while. Yeah. That's what he should do. He should. Except...

He takes a seat on the couch. "FRIDAY?"

_'Sir?'_

He's silent for a moment, having already forgotten why he'd spoken up in the first place—just to hear someone's voice, he supposes, although he's not sure his new AI really counts—and then shakes his head. "Nothing."

The news is showing footage of his blasting a building—one he's pretty sure was already set to be destroyed, based on the super quick once-over he got from Rhodey before they set out—and getting clocked on the head by Captain America's shield, again, and Tony can't help but watch as he and two people he considers friends start duking it out in the middle of the street. It's like a train wreck: He wants to look away, but every time he tries...

"My, that was quite a spectacle."

And there it is. Tony straightens. He's tempted to turn the television off now, just so he can't watch Loki watch the footage, but he leaves it on for emphasis and mutes the sound instead. He doesn't turn around, but he sets his coffee mug aside. "Loki. I heard you were back in town."

Loki circles around the couch so that he's in Tony's line of vision, his eyes still on the screen. "Had you? From Thor, I'm sure."

"Thor and I aren't really playing for the same team anymore, I don't think." Tony pauses and then wrinkles his nose. "That came out wrong. Not that you'd know. Earth expressions are lost on you, right? I hope?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "We're not on the same side anymore. That's what I meant."

Loki's gaze briefly slides from the TV screen. "You are no longer an Avenger? I find that difficult to believe."

"Believe it or not, I don't care. They've been throwing me under the bus for every little thing since this whole enterprise started, and I've been putting myself on the line for them every single time. But when I'm the one in trouble? When it's my ass in the fire?" He leans back and crosses his arms. "They let me burn. The Mandarin, AIM, now Ultron? Forget it. I'm done with them. All of them. And they're probably glad to get rid of me, too. I mean, look at what happened with Bruce. Sure, he was a huge help with that one floating city, but as soon as that's fixed they find a way to take him out as payback for the whole South Africa thing. Seriously, I'm pretty sure the only reason they haven't put a bullet in my head is because they want my tech. Or my money. So, you know, too bad for them, because I'm cutting them off from both."

Loki considers him, searches his face, and then nods slowly. "I see."

Tony straightens again and leans forward. "So is that why you're here? You heard I split from them and decided you wanted to help me out?"

Loki's eyebrows go up. "Help you?"

"Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you, I'm pissed off, and I want a little payback. Then I can move on and go about my business, you know? And you, you've still got a beef with Thor, right? So, yeah, okay. I'll let you help me out. I'll even let you take a crack at Thor if you want, and when we're all done we'll call it a day."

"You'll 'let' me," he repeats dryly, and he shakes his head. "I'm afraid you have grossly misinterpreted my coming here. I've my own plans, and I hardly have the time to waste with yours. I have no intention of offering you my 'help.'"

Tony raises his eyebrows. "You've got plans? Of course you've got plans. Okay." He gets to his feet. "In that case, I want in."

Loki, whose gaze had slipped to the television again, raises his head and offers Tony the ghost of a bemused, indulgent smile, like he might give to a little kid. "In?"

"You say you've got plans, so sure. Why not? I want in."

"You want to be subservient to me?"

"No way. Let's get this straight from the onset, okay? I'm Tony Stark. I don't play second fiddle to anybody." He nods to the television as Steve comes on screen. "But if you're going after Rogers and the rest of them, I wouldn't mind lending a hand, as long as I get to be on the ground floor of whatever it is we're doing. And come on, you know you can use me. I know the lay of the land. You don't. I know things about the Avengers. More than Clint did when you took him over, that's for sure. Plus, anything I don't know, I can get. I know how to get into their systems. They can try to keep me out, but they can't."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "And you think that is incentive?"

"I know it's incentive. You don't just want my help—you _need_ it."

"I need your help," Loki repeats, clearly skeptical. "Are you so certain of that?"

"You bet I am."

"Mm. You are vastly overestimating your worth, I think."

Tony shrugs. "Sure, maybe, but is that a risk you can take? I mean, things didn't exactly go all that well for you the last time you paid our planet a visit, you remember? Do you really want this to go the same way?"

Loki frowns. "As I recall, I was very nearly successful in my last endeavor."

"Sure, nearly. Until I came by and blew up the alien hive mind or whatever it was. Oh, yeah, add that to the list of things I've done that no one bothered to thank me for." He shakes his head. "Point is, I'm the reason you lost, technically. Imagine how different it could have gone if I'd been on your side back then. I mean, you tried to get me on your side against my will last time. This time, I'm offering." Tony spreads his hands. "So here, now's your chance to make it happen. Want to win? Let me in on your master plan."

Loki watches him, silent for a long moment. His gaze eventually slips back to the television screen, and Tony quickly turns the sound back on, just in case that is any more persuasive than the visual on its own.

"—you think, Brenda? Has Iron Man given up on the Avengers?"

"I don't know, Stan," the anchor—Brenda, presumably—answers, a little too upbeat for Tony's liking. "It certainly seems as though he and Captain America aren't seeing eye to eye."

"Well, the height difference..." Stan quips, and Brenda laughs.

Tony turns off the television. He doesn't care whether the footage is convincing anymore; he just doesn't want to listen to it. "Well?" he says instead, trying not only to fill the silence but also to push Loki into a decision. "Are you in or out?"

"Perhaps this can be arranged," Loki answers slowly. "But on a trial basis, naturally."

That's good enough, for now. Tony can work with that. At least, he thinks he can. "Don't want to rush to judgment too quickly, huh? That's good. It's smart. I like smart. So, what exactly do you have in mind? What are we doing, and when? Soon? Is it soon?"

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Don't be too hasty, Stark. All good things come with time. As a man with many vices, and the means to support them, I would think you'd know that."

"Yeah, sure, I know that." Tony tries to be subtle about wiping the palms of his hands on his jeans. He can handle high-pressure situations, but this... Well, one wrong move and Loki will know he's trying to play him, and then this whole thing could just spiral completely out of control. "Just, you know, I like to stay busy. Man of action, you know? That's just how I am."

"I'm sure it is. Regardless, you will have to exercise some patience. Such delicate ventures cannot—should not—be entered into without some sense of discretion."

Say what? Tony isn't a hundred percent sure he knows where Loki is going with this. So far all he knows for sure is that Loki is willing to let him in on his plans, or at least some small part of his plans. Even if it is on a trial basis, Tony is counting that as a win. He has his foot in the door; once he shoves his way through, he'll know everything he needs to bring back to the Avengers and stop Loki once and for all.

Assuming Asgard doesn't lose track of the guy and let him out of his cell again, of course, but that's Asgard's problem, not his. As long as Loki stays off Earth, Tony will be happy.

"Discretion," he says. "Sure. I can do that. I mean, okay, you probably know the press has a list a mile long of all the people I've slept with, but you should see the list they _don't_ have. It's definitely more impressive, trust me."

Loki offers him the ghost of a smile. "We'll see."

"Are you at least going to let me in on your plan, at least? See, I like to know what it is I'm signing up for before I get too involved."

"You already signed up, technically, and willingly involved yourself in my affairs," Loki says, shrugging. "You have already lost your chance to negotiate."

"I did? When did I do that?"

"You did," Loki answers, completely ignoring Tony's second question. Then, before Tony can try asking again, he folds himself into a chair catty-corner from the couch, nearest to the window. "Now, I do believe a drink is in order."

Tony blinks. "A drink?"

"Well, yes. To cement our partnership in this venture."

Tony checks the clock on the wall. "It's ten in the morning."

Loki gives him a blank look. "Yes, and?"

"You don't think it's a little early to be drinking?" Not that Tony is one to talk. He's eased up on his binge drinking, sure, but he still has his moments. He does try not to get completely wasted before mid-afternoon, though. He finds it's better for his general well-being if he stays mostly sober until at least after lunch.

Loki waves a dismissive hand. "Not at all. I'll admit that I am unfamiliar with your customs here, but on Asgard, we take drink with nearly every meal."

Tony frowns. It's the first he's heard of that, and he's spent a fairly substantial amount of time with Thor. Then again, maybe Thor is just too polite to ask for anything stronger than coffee with his breakfast, or maybe Thor has been doctoring his juice this entire time without anyone noticing. It's really not Tony's place to judge, and, hey, now that he thinks about it, aren't the Asgardians essentially just Vikings with cooler toys? Vikings drank a lot, right? Of course they did. Okay. He's got this.

"Yeah, okay," he concedes, and he picks up his coffee cup before crossing the room to his bar. The stock is a little low, and he makes a mental note to have FRIDAY put in an order to replenish it before the week is out. He's not planning on having any wild parties, but, hey, you never know, and if he's going to spending more time with a guy who could probably eviscerate him without putting any real effort into it, he might need to increase his consumption just a bit to help cope—or to help placate the guy doing the eviscerating.

"So, what's your poison?" he asks, taking out a bottle of scotch for himself. He unscrews the lid, gives the bottle a sniff, and pours a generous amount into his coffee. "Cognac? You seem kind of like a cognac guy to me."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. I can totally see you lounging around with a snifter and lording it over your lowly peons while you use one of them as a footstool or something. It's not even a stretch." He puts the scotch bottle back and reaches for the cognac. "So?"

"As much as I do enjoy the footstool imagery, perhaps another time. A beer will suffice instead," Loki says, turning his head to look out the window.

That gives Tony a moment's pause. Okay, so... He knows Thor appreciates a good beer, although the guy has definitely done some serious damage to Tony's liquor cabinet in his time and has a particular fondness for akvavit, which, honestly, Tony just picked up as a curiosity while he was at some conference or another. Still, Loki... Loki doesn't seem like a beer kind of guy. Port, maybe, or a good brandy, sure, but beer?

"A beer?" he repeats. "You sure?"

"Doctor Selvig insisted I try one during my previous visit. Something to do with 'the songs of his ancestors.' He insisted it was a beverage to be enjoyed with one's allies." Loki's gaze slides to meet Tony's. "And are we not allies in this, Stark?"

"Of course we are. Absolutely." He knows he has beer, although he's not entirely sure where it is, so he closes the cabinet containing his liquor and starts opening up all the refrigerated sections of the bar, trying to find it. "Working together for a common goal, that sort of thing, that definitely makes us allies. Partners in crime, even. Or is that going too far? Speaking of crime, though, I should probably say up front that I'm not particularly okay with murdering people. I mean, not for fun or anything. Or for profit. So if we could just go easy on the murder, that'd be really great. Really."

"I'll endeavor to keep that in mind."

That's only vaguely reassuring, but Tony opts not to press the matter. He's still walking on pretty shaky ground with Loki; it's probably better he not push him too far just yet. There will be plenty of time for that later.

He finally finds some beer and takes a bottle—then, just in case, takes a second one—and takes those and his coffee-scotch over to Loki, who takes one of the bottles from him. Tony sets the second on the floor next to Loki's chair before he retreats back to his spot on the couch.

"So," he says. "Are we proposing a toast or something?"

"If you would like." Loki removes the cap from his bottle and considers the contents before he takes a tentative drink. He apparently finds it acceptable, and he settles back in his seat. "Did you have something particular in mind?"

"Not really."

"Then allow me." He raises his beer just slightly and waits for Tony to lift his coffee cup before he recites, " _Byrþi betri berrat maþr brautu at an sé manvit mikit, auþi betra þykkir þat í ókunnun staþ slíkt es válaþs vera._ "

Tony drinks when Loki does, then shakes his head. "What was that?"

"A toast."

"Yeah, but what did it mean?"

Loki offers him a slow, small smile that makes the hairs on the back of Tony's neck stand on end. "Hardly anything of importance. Drink up, Stark. We are celebrating."

Well, that can't be good. Still, Tony resolves not to worry about it—for now—and returns the smile with a grin of his own, trying not to look concerned. "Right," he answers. "Down the hatch."

***

Several drinks and the most awkward forty-five minutes in the history of the universe later, Loki finally leaves and Tony shuts his eyes, tilting his head back to rest against the top of the couch. He's definitely a bit more buzzed than he'd like, mostly because Loki had insisted it was rude for his host to go without while he was still drinking and had continually topped up Tony's cup—something he'd have appreciated, probably, if he didn't have to try and act like some kind of super spy—until he'd apparently decided he'd had enough and left without so much as a 'thank you.'

"Alone at last," Tony says. "Seriously, it's way too early for this." He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "FRIDAY, you got all of that, right?"

' _I did, sir. Should I forward the transcript to Captain Rogers?_ '

He shakes his head and immediately regrets it as the world starts to swim behind his eyes. Okay, maybe he's more drunk than he is buzzed at this point. Lesson learned. "Better not." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. "See if you can translate that gibberish he said was a toast, though, will you? I want to make sure he wasn't trying to cast some kind of mind control spell or something on me. Clint would never let me live that down."

FRIDAY processes that for about thirty seconds before speaking up. ' _It seems to be text from the Hávamál, sir_.'

"The what?"

' _The words of the high one, as they appear in the Poetic Edda. They are usually attributed to the god Odin_.'

Well, that's interesting. It sounds almost as though Loki's daddy issues might be acting up. If they are, maybe Tony can use that, if he can figure out a way to do it without it backfiring on him. "What's it mean?"

' _Roughly translated, it is part of a warning as to the perils of excessive drinking. Perhaps he was giving you advice, sir?_ '

He points a finger at the nearest wall sensor. "Watch it, FRIDAY. The last AI that got sassy with me wound up getting a body and becoming a superhero. Let's try not to have a repeat of that so soon if we can help it. Seriously, I'm not sure the world could take two of you guys." He lowers his arm, mostly because it suddenly seems very heavy. "Give me the exact translation, all right? Word for word."

_'A better burden no man can bear on the way than his mother's wit, and no worse provision can he carry with him than too deep a draught of ale.'_ FRIDAY pauses. _'Would you care for the rest of the verse, sir?_ '

"Nah, don't worry about it." Tony frowns at the ceiling and rakes his fingers through his hair. "Is he on to me? Is that what that means?"

' _The odds of_ —'

"Rhetorical question, FRIDAY. Don't answer it. I don't want to know." He scrubs his hands over his face. "I should really be more sober for this. All right, if he is on to me, what then? Is he going to come after me? It doesn't seem like it. I mean, he sat right there for almost an hour and the only hint I've got that he's got an idea that I'm not totally sincere is that toast, and that could mean probably anything, right? Maybe he always gives that toast. I should call Thor and ask him. Except that'd probably be bad, especially if Loki is monitoring my phone lines somehow. That will totally give him the wrong idea." Or is it the right idea? Maybe it doesn't matter. "Is he monitoring my phone lines?"

' _Is that a hypothetical question, sir?_ '

He really does miss JARVIS sometimes. "No."

' _I have seen no indication that anyone has tampered with or attempted to access your communication outlets at this time, sir._ '

"Okay. Good. At least I know he's not actively keeping tabs on me. Probably. Unless he's being super creepy and working some of his magic hoodoo on me. Have you seen any hoodoo going on, FRIDAY?"

' _My sensors are not able to track hoodoo, sir_.'

Well, that makes sense. It's not as though Tony has any idea how to calibrate for that sort of thing anyway. Aside from his run-ins with Loki and with Wanda Maximoff, he's had very little access to hoodoo—or any other forms of pseudoscience, come to think of it—during the past few years. "Okay. Good. Keep on the lookout and make sure you let me know if anything pops up that needs my attention, got it?"

' _Of course, sir_.'

He can't let himself freak out over nothing. So Loki gave a toast and then plied him with liquor. Big deal. Even if Loki does suspect something is up, it's not like Tony told him anything. He just made really bad small talk for a little while, and probably a good ten or fifteen minutes of it was about the weather. Seriously, it's not that easy to chat up a guy who doesn't get any pop culture references and with whom he has absolutely nothing in common, and since Loki made it pretty clear that he didn't want to talk about his evil plan for world domination, that was right out, too.

And that can't be good, right? Loki isn't going to trust him if Tony can't find some way to relate to him and get him to open up, which more or less defeats the purpose of Tony blowing up parts of a city and making the entire country hate his guts. But what is there? Pretty much the only thing they have in common, that Tony can figure out, is that they both know Thor, but Tony is pretty sure that line of conversation is going to go pretty poorly. After all, Thor is an Avenger, and sure, Tony is supposed to be altogether not too fond of the Avengers at the moment, but the fact of the matter is that he thinks Thor is an all-around good guy and he doesn't want to risk screwing up, saying the wrong thing, and getting on Loki's bad side all over again.

He groans. "I'm getting the feeling this isn't going to be as easy as I hoped it would be," he says. "I guess I should have paid more attention when Thor was telling us about the good old days back in Asgard. Don't suppose you have any of those conversations saved, FRIDAY?"

' _I'm afraid not, sir_.'

"Figures." It's his own fault, really. FRIDAY is programmed to retain the essentials only—Tony's attempt at keeping her processing smoothly with minimal effort on his part—and that requires her to dump nonessential data at the end of every day. "All right, I'm not going to call Thor and ask him for dirt on his little brother, so I'll have to do the next best thing. Scour the internet and collect anything you can find on him, will you? I only want to see the cliff note version, though, so try and keep it brief."

' _Would you prefer the final report with or without citations?_ '

"It's my eyes only, so just footnote them in case I want to reference back. Keep it streamlined." Tony pushes to his feet, using the arm of the couch to help him keep his balance when the world tilts a little bit sideways from the effort, and then slowly makes his way toward the stairs leading down to his workshop. "I'll be downstairs."

' _I should warn you, sir, that Loki is already there._ '

That gives Tony a moment's pause. "Down where? Down in my lab down there? And you didn't say anything about it earlier? I thought he left. Shit. Was he listening?"

FRIDAY takes a moment to process before she decides which question to answer. ' _I took your proposal to enter into a partnership with him as permission to grant him access, sir._ '

He is totally going to have to up her security protocols, at minimum, once this is over. Still, he has to admit that this is probably at least partly his fault. He never thought to let his AI in on the details of this plan and, unlike JARVIS, FRIDAY hasn't been around long enough to know when something is a little off and ask about it. She'll get there—he perfected the learning AI ages ago, after all—but he can't expect it to happen overnight. If he'd put any thought into it at all, he'd have arranged for Vision to come download JARVIS's memory into FRIDAY's or something, if that's even something Vision can do, but oh well. Another time.

For now... Tony rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Okay, fine, fair. What's he doing?"

' _I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure._ '

"But you have some kind on feed on him, right? Security cameras?"

It takes FRIDAY a moment to answer. ' _I believe he is using some form of electromagnetic pulse to block the feed, sir. I cannot access it; I can only confirm that he is there._ '

Great, just great. EMP in the workshop isn't bad news at all. Okay, time to take inventory. Loki is messing around downstairs. What's down there? The bots, but they're probably doing their usual thing and being more of a hindrance than of any help. A couple works-in-progress Tony had been tooling with before getting called off to hang out with the Avengers. No real dangerous projects, thankfully, since he's still in a weird transition phase of moving all his stuff back in now that the house has been rebuilt. He has a couple suits down there, too, but the only one that isn't locked up and that Loki might be able to access is pretty beat up, thanks to Cap and Rhodey, and all its weapon systems are offline. There's no way Loki is getting anything out of that unless he completely takes the thing apart and figures out how to rebuild them outside of the suit, and that doesn't seem very likely.

Still, even though Loki might not be able to get any of Tony's weapons or anything going, he's not exactly defenseless, and unless Tony manages to develop amazing aim in the next few minutes and finds something really, really heavy to lob at Loki's head while the guy's back is turned, he's pretty sure he's the one at the disadvantage here if things go sour. And who knows what the guy overheard after Tony thought he left? How is he going to interpret Tony's debating whether or not to call Thor, or his research project?

Then again, if Loki had heard all that, and cared about it, wouldn't he be up here doing something horrible to him? Loki isn't exactly known for reigning in his temper, and the guy moves fast. If Loki wanted to hurt him—or worse—he's had plenty of time to do it, and he hasn't. So what's Loki up to? Is he oblivious or just lulling Tony into a false sense of security?

Only one way to find out.

Tony shakes his head. "Okay, I'm going to do it. It's probably a suicide mission, but I'm doing it. FRIDAY, if anyone comes asking after my body, have them check downstairs first. I don't care what he does to me, I want an open casket and then I want to be entombed like an Egyptian pharaoh, except I want people to be able to walk in and check me out. More like Lenin, I guess, except without all the politics. Charge admission."

' _You want a capitalist funeral, sir?_ '

"The best money can buy." He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Here I go," he announces, and heads down the stairs.

He doesn't wait to see what's going on before he opens the door to the workshop and walks right in. "You know, if you wanted the grand tour, you could have just asked me."

Loki makes a thoughtful noise but doesn't look away from the many, many holoscreens he has open in front of him. He doesn't even turn around to face Tony, which, honestly, is a little bit insulting. "I'd rather assumed you would take the opportunity to sleep off your earlier ordeal. It cannot be so simple, turning one's back on one's friends."

"They aren't my friends." They're more than that, but that's not any of Loki's business. "What are you looking for, exactly, and why did you feel the need to ply me with liquor before you went looking for it? What kind of partnership is this, Loki?"

"A tentative one," he answers smoothly.

Tony makes a face. "Yeah, well, you just remember that trust is a two-way street, you got it? Don't think I won't change my mind and bail if I decide I don't like how this is going."

Loki scoffs. "I could have drugged you and used the time you were helpless to come here, but I chose not to. I would count that as being remarkably trustworthy."

"Yeah, the fact that you could have roofied me and didn't—and the part where you even think that's a possible means of ditching someone—isn't exactly making me feel all warm and fuzzy."

"I assure you that I would only resort to such drastic action in an extremely desperate situation."

"That's not exactly making me feel better." Still, he lets it go. Given the option, he'd definitely rather Loki try to drink him under the table than do whatever other crazy things the guy can concoct. He ventures further into the room so that he can get a better look at what Loki has on the holoscreens. To be honest, he's mostly just impressed Loki figured out how to use them so quickly. Thor can swear all he wants that Asgard's technology is more advanced, but Tony knows for a fact that it took the demigod longer to figure these things out than it did Captain America, and Steve has trouble working the DVD player. "What's all this?

Loki waves a dismissive hand. "Research."

Tony spots an article and news still from his run-in with the Mandarin a few years back and he rotates the screen toward him. "You're researching me?"

"I do have to be sure you can be trusted," Loki points out. "I also think it important I fully understand your motivations in joining me before I truly welcome you into the fold." He glances at the screen Tony indicated and shrugs. "Thus far your public history seems consistent with what you've told me. I knew your comradery with Captain Rogers was somewhat mercurial, but not quite to the extent that he would not aid you in a time of crisis."

"Yeah, that was a rough couple weeks." He gives the other screens a cursory glance. "Finding anything good?" He doesn't wait for an answer, instead pulling another screen—this one with what looks like the beginnings a to-do list, except written in symbols Tony doesn't recognize—closer to him. "This yours?"

"Notations. Nothing more." Loki waves a hand and the screens all disappear. "Thus far I suppose I've no evidence that you are lying to me."

"You're really not giving me enough credit. I mean, seriously. You didn't have to do research on me." Although he has to admit, knowing Loki is researching him makes Tony feel a little bit better about having FRIDAY research Loki. All he has to do now is hope Loki doesn't dig deep enough to figure that out. He supposes he should just be grateful Loki hasn't thought to ask any of the obvious questions, like—

"It is remarkable that although it is no secret as to where you are—I found you easily enough, after all—your one-time comrades have yet to come after you."

Like that. Just like that. Tony feigns nonchalance and shrugs. "They're probably still off licking their wounds. Or still busy trying to clean up. That's what they do, you know. They destroy a place and then go back and pick up their messes like that's going to make anything better."

Loki gives him a sideways look. "That is precisely the reason you invented your heroic persona, is it not? To clean up your own messes?"

Ouch. Loki's not wrong, but it's not like Tony really wanted the reminder. Somehow it's even worse coming from Loki. "It's not the same thing."

"Hm."

"Anyway, that's probably what it is. Now that you mention it, maybe I should relocate. Do you have a hideout? Maybe I can bunk there for a while."

Loki gestures broadly. "Oh, but it is not half so nice as all this. No, I think perhaps I will stay here and merely add my personal touch to your defenses."

"What exactly does that mean?"

Loki looks at him. "I've means of arranging things so that no one can find this place without a direct invitation from someone inside. Knowing what I do of your encounter with the man known as the Mandarin, it seems to be a skill you could have used before." He shrugs. "Never fear, Stark. This partnership does have its benefits, I assure you."

"You're... going to stay here?" Is that good? Does that mean Loki trusts him?

"I assume that is not a problem."

It is totally a problem. A hundred percent of a problem. Loki bunking at Malibu means Tony has to be on his guard all the time—although, granted, the fact that Loki can basically appear out of thin air without any notice whatsoever wouldn't make his commuting back and forth much better—and that he has to keep up his bad guy act all day every day until this gets figured out. That's going to be exhausting. Plus, there's the less than awesome part where it means Loki is going to be there all the time and might kill him in his sleep.

Still, it's not like he can say anything like that to Loki, so Tony shrugs instead. "Sure, it's fine. I've got tons of space. Tons. Plenty to spare. Just, you know, usual house guest rules. No wild parties without inviting me, stuff like that."

"You do take the fun out of things. Very well, I agree to your terms." Loki takes a step back from the work table. "Do carry on without me."

"Where are you going?"

"To make myself at home, naturally," Loki says, and, just like that, he disappears.

Tony is silent for a moment, waiting to see if he shows back up, and then he tilts his head back. "FRIDAY, where'd he go? Is he still lurking around?"

' _I don't have a reading of him in the vicinity, sir._ '

So that probably means he left. Okay. Good. That'll give Tony time to get his thoughts in order and hopefully put together some kind of game plan. He has a supervillain living in his house, and he knows no more about Loki's plan than he did this morning. Is that progress? He seriously can't tell. So far all of this almost seems too easy. He's on the verge of an anxiety attack, sure, but so far Loki isn't giving him any trouble. He's barely asking him any questions. What does that mean?

"I need more information," he decides. "FRIDAY, what have you got on him?"

' _The vast majority of my sources stem from mythology, sir, and the accuracy cannot be determined without verification, perhaps from Thor._ '

"That's fine. I figured that would happen." He took a seat on one his spinny stools and took a whirl around, just for fun. DUM-E whirred and beeped at him from the corner. "Pull it up on screen. All of it. I'm going to take advantage of his being gone to work on my homework. Knowledge is power, right? Who said that? Someone famous, right?"

' _Francis Bacon, I believe._ '

"Famous enough." A series of holoscreens spawn in a circle around him and Tony turns his stool slowly so he can get the full effect. "Looks like I've got my work cut out for me. I thought I told you I wanted the short version?"

' _I was as concise as possible, sir._ '

"That's a scary thought. Okay, go ahead and disregard anything about the battle in New York. See if that narrows things down."

Two, maybe three screens disappear, but probably a dozen or so stay up. Tony furrows his brow. "Really?"

' _It seems it is a popular mythos, sir, especially as Thor's arrival on Earth confirmed it as at least partly true._ '

"Yeah, that makes sense, I guess." It doesn't make his job any easier, though. He's got to find a way to relate to Loki so that he can get the guy talking. Once he gets a conversation going, Tony is mostly sure he can steer it where he wants it to go; he just has to make it seem like a natural stream of consciousness. Should be easy enough, right?

Tony cracks his knuckles and leans forward to enlarge one of the screens. "FRIDAY, you let me know when Loki is back, all right? If you can, let me know he's back before he shows up behind me or something. Don't let him catch me by surprise. Oh, and keep an eye on the news. Let me know if he does anything out in the real world, or if it looks like any of his lackeys are out and about and causing trouble. Got it?"

' _Of course, sir._ '

"Good. Let's get to work."


	4. Chapter 4

It's at least a couple of hours before FRIDAY alerts him that Loki is back, and Tony quickly closes all of his windows, albeit somewhat reluctantly. The Norse mythos is pretty insane, and if even half of it is true, it sounds like Thor and Loki had either the best or the craziest childhoods ever. And, conveniently, it gives him plenty of fodder for making small talk with Loki when the time comes.

When Loki doesn't immediately appear in the lab, Tony looks to FRIDAY's sensor. "You're sure he's back? Where is he?"

' _He's convened upstairs, sir. He has a few guests with him as well._ '

"Throwing a party already? And look at that, I haven't received an invitation. He just has no regard for the rules, does he?" He stands up. "Can you get a picture on him and the guys he's with? Anything?"

FRIDAY immediately opens a holoscreen and starts to stream the security feed to it. Looks like Loki isn't bothering with his EMP blocker anymore, and Tony has to wonder what exactly that means. Does it mean Loki doesn't care if Tony knows what he's up to? That he wants Tony to know what he's doing? Or, maybe, does it mean he doesn't think Tony is paying any attention and figures he doesn't need to bother with it?

Probably not the last one, Tony is pretty sure. Loki doesn't seem that careless. Even back in New York, even when he thought he had the upper hand, he wasn't careless. He made some really questionable decisions, sure, but he always kept his guard up. So no, it's probably not carelessness.

So, since Loki isn't bothering to block Tony now, it sure seems like Loki is more or less inviting Tony to spy on his tea party, which is awfully nice of him. It definitely saves Tony the trouble of having to sneak around.

He takes his seat again and pulls the holoscreen closer. All right, what exactly is he looking at here? There's Loki, looking as calm as they come, and he's with two—no, wait, three, there's one hanging out just outside the range of the camera—other people. No, not people—they definitely don't look human. They have the standard two arms and two legs, but that's about where the resemblance stops. All told, they kind of look like a lizard and a rock met in a dark alley and made a baby, beat that baby with a stick, and called it a day. He doesn't remember seeing those guys before, when Hill pulled up the cell phone footage, but, hey, aliens. Who is he to judge?

Tony squints, then snaps his fingers to get FRIDAY's attention. "Hey, Loki's mouth is moving but I don't hear anything, and I don't read lips. Give me the sound that goes with this, will you?"

The loud burst of static that follows his request has him clapping his hands over his ears. FRIDAY quickly adjusts the audio, and when Tony lowers his hands, the static is gone, leaving the rest of the sound intact.

"—agreement," Loki finishes. He doesn't look pleased, and Tony thinks he recognizes that look from New York, from the two or three seconds right before Loki tossed him through a window. It puts a shiver down his spine just looking at it.

The lizard-rock lackeys don't look all that intimidated by it, and the greenest one of them—if that's even a worthwhile means of identification—starts growling, snarling, and gesturing.

Tony furrows his brow. "What is that? Is that a language? It has cadence like a language. FRIDAY, anything?"

' _It does have some resemblance to speech patterns, but I cannot match it to any known language, sir._ '

"Well, no, you wouldn't. He's an alien." Tony shakes his head. "I'm listening to an alien language. Holy shit. How cool is that?"

On screen, Loki waves a hand, cutting the lizard-rock monster alien off in mid-grunt. "I told you, no. I will not allow it, and you will cease these thoughts immediately."

"Convenient that they understand English, I guess," Tony says, and then he pauses. "And that Thor and Loki speak it, too. Which... I guess makes sense? Kind of?"

FRIDAY, when she answers, sounds vaguely confused. ' _Loki's speech is not consistent with English at all, sir._ '

"What are you talking about? Of course it does. I wouldn't be able to understand him otherwise." Although, now that he thinks about it, maybe there's something else at play there. When the Avengers were traversing around Europe looking for Loki's staff, they ran into tons of people who didn't understand a word of English, but Thor somehow had no problem getting his meaning across despite the language barrier. At the time, Tony had just figured people simply saw that Thor was a seven-foot-tall He-man and tried harder to figure out what he was pantomiming, but maybe that wasn't it at all.

"Note to me: Ask Thor about that whole language thing later." He shifts in his seat. "Any clue what they're all talking about, FRIDAY?"

' _I can only translate Loki's side of the conversation, sir._ '

"Yeah, same here." He scratched at his chest through his t-shirt. "He looks kind of pissed off. That's not just me, right? He looks pissed off?" He frowns at the screen and watches as the reptilian lackeys make more noise and Loki's expression continues to darken, and then he nearly falls off his stool as Loki looks directly at the camera and tilts his head to one side, almost as though he's watching Tony right back. That has to be an accident, right? Loki can't know the camera is there—it's pretty well hidden, if Tony does say so himself—and he can't possibly know Tony is watching him. There's no way. Is there?

Loki drops his gaze and offers the three lackeys a tight smile. "I understand your point, but my decision remains unaltered. Now, I think you have outstayed your welcome." He flicks his fingers and the air in Tony's living room sort of tears, revealing what looks like a field of stars and nebulas in the exposed space. Tony doesn't need to be told what that is: It's a portal. The question is, to where?

"FRIDAY, see if you can get a trace on that," he says, getting to his feet. "On them. On anything going through that thing, I don't care. Just figure out where it leads." Wherever it goes, it must be the place Loki is keeping his army of convicts—it might even be Loki's secret base.

On screen, Loki gestures for the trio of aliens to go into the portal and they do, although they look pretty reluctant about it, and at least one of them mutter-growls something as he leaves that makes Loki scowl. Tony holds his breath until the last of the aliens is through and Loki makes a small gesture, closing the portal and putting Tony's living room back together, and then he exhales.

"Anything, FRIDAY?"

' _I'm afraid it happened too quickly for me to conduct all possible scans,_ ' FRIDAY apologizes. ' _I will re-initiate as soon as another anomaly appears, however._ '

"You do that." He runs his fingers through his hair, still watching the screens.

Loki again lifts his gaze to the camera, and this time he smiles—that slow cat smile that sets Tony's teeth on edge. "You are welcome to join me, Stark," he says. "There is no need to spy."

Tony winces. Busted. He shuts off his screen and heads up the stairs, locking his workshop behind him.

"How'd you know?" he asks once he gets to the living room.

Loki folds himself into a seat, crosses one leg at the knee, and steeples his fingers. "Merely a lucky guess."

That is almost definitely a lie. Tony should probably keep his mouth shut, but, instead, he shakes his head and goes to the bar to pour himself a drink. A small one—no need to give Loki any ideas. "Bullshit. Come on, you can tell me. How'd you know I was watching?"

Loki smiles—a real smile, this time, Tony thinks, although he can't be absolutely sure. "It hardly matters. You were wise to keep your distance, I think."

"Yeah, your guests didn't look too friendly." He thinks he knows the answer, but he asks anyway. "Who are they? Friends of yours?"

Loki wrinkles his nose. "Hardly. They are temporarily useful. That is all."

"Harsh." He keeps the bar between him and Loki, just to make himself feel better, and sips his scotch. "What were they?"

"Not of this world."

Tony fights the urge to roll his eyes. He loses. "No shit. What world were they from?"

Loki shrugs. "I am not entirely certain. They hailed from a realm outside Yggdrasil's reach and arrived here on accident many years ago. They were unfortunate enough to earn Asgard's attention and were held captive in its dungeons for some time."

"What'd they do?"

Loki lifts his gaze to meet Tony's, considering him. "You assume they earned their sentence?"

He hesitates. "Didn't they?"

"Most likely." Loki makes a dismissive gesture. "They claim innocence, and I was too young—or perhaps too disinterested—to make note of them when they were first brought to trial, so I cannot judge for myself."

"But you trust them," Tony ventures. "Right? Please tell me you didn't bring people you don't trust into my house. That's really not okay. You don't know where they've been, I don't know where they've been... It's just a huge mess when everything is said and done."

Loki is silent, considering that. "I trust them to give me what information I need, and it hardly matters whether they realize that is what they are doing. Beyond that, it remains to be seen."

Tony raises his eyebrows but stays silent. Okay, so Loki doesn't exactly trust his convict lackeys. That's probably smart, considering they're all prison escapees, but what does that say about Loki's master plan? He's keeping them close enough to get what he needs out of them, but then what? Does he plan on keeping them around and winning them over, or does this mean they're expendable? And, if they're expendable, what does that mean for Tony, when Loki decides he's gotten whatever use he can out of him?

All the more reason to figure out what Loki is up to and get this over with as quickly as possible, at least. Not that Tony needs more incentive to hurry this along, of course. He doesn't want to be stuck with Loki any longer than he has to be.

"All right," he says. "How many of these guys do you have at your beck and call? Just the three stooges there or what?"

"You cannot truly think I—" Loki cuts himself off suddenly and goes very still. After about thirty seconds, he jerks back, raises a hand to press his fingers against his temple hard enough that the skin goes a little white, and shuts his eyes. He makes a soft noise in the back of his throat—a sort of keening noise that has Tony wincing.

Tony waits for Loki to say something—to do something—but when Loki still hasn't moved or opened his eyes in about a minute, he sets down his scotch and starts to make his way around the bar. Evil or no, if Loki is in some kind of trouble... "Hey, are you okay? You don't look okay. Are you—"

"Fine." Loki holds up a hand and gestures for Tony to stop. "I am fine."

"You sure? Because that doesn't look like 'fine.' Did you have a stroke or something? Or are you sick? If you're sick, you should probably give me a heads up. I don't know how to fend off space germs. Does hand sanitizer work on them? Scratch that. I'm not convinced it works on regular Earth germs, to be honest, so I'm probably better off not placing any bets on its effectiveness against space germs."

"I am fine," Loki says again, opening his eyes and frowning at Tony.

"You don't look fine," Tony says again, mostly just to have something to say, but he retreats back behind the bar anyway and fiddles with his glass of scotch. "You sure you don't want anything? Painkillers, a stiff drink..."

"Some rest, perhaps," Loki concedes as he gets to his feet. "Beyond that, there is nothing I require of you."

"Right now you mean, right? Not in general or anything? Seeing as how we've partnered up and everything, that is. I'd hate to think you've already written me off."

Loki glances his way. "Never fear, Stark. I am sure you'll be of some use to me, in time."

Somehow, that is not even a little reassuring.

"Do you want me to show you to a room or something?"

Loki waves a dismissive hand as he disappears up the stairs. "I'm sure I can manage, Stark. Don't trouble yourself."

Tony considers arguing, or insisting that he show Loki to one of the guest rooms and give him a tour of the upstairs, but he talks himself out of it. That would seem suspicious, wouldn't it? It would be too intrusive. He just wants to make sure he knows which direction the guy will be coming from when he decides to murder Tony in his sleep, that's all, and there's an easy fix for that: He'll sleep in his workshop until Loki leaves. That way, the only directions Loki can come from are "up" or "out of thin air."

Yep, that'll make him feel better.

Once Loki is gone, Tony downs what's left of his scotch and drags his fingers through his hair. All right, so he has a murder-happy demigod crashing in one of his guest bedrooms. This is definitely not a big deal. In fact, it's a good thing. Absolutely. The closer the proximity, the more likely it is Loki will let something slip, and once he does that then it's only a matter of time before Tony figures out exactly what he's up to.

That said, Tony has to admit he's a little unnerved. So far, Loki seems to be making it pretty easy on him. Why? Tony wants to believe his 'you need me' speech from earlier was super convincing, but given that Loki followed that up by getting him drunk so he could snoop, maybe not so much. Maybe the Baltimore footage—combined with all the archived reports about Tony's run-in with the Mandarin and all of that mess—helped convince him. It's possible.

Of course, there's also Occam's razor to consider: Among equally likely competing hypotheses, the most obvious one—the one that requires him to make the fewest assumptions—is the most likely. So what does that mean?

Well, it probably means Loki is playing him, that's what. But to what end? If he wants something from Tony, he's sure taking his sweet time asking for it, and if he thinks having Tony on his side will keep the Avengers from coming after him, he's in for a shock—Tony knows full well that playing this game means he's going to have to go head-to-head against his friends eventually, and they aren't going to hold back just because he's on the other side of the battlefield. Loki's got to know that, if it comes down to it, the team will make the hard call: they'll do what they have to do to save the day. Loki saw the reports from Sokovia, about Ultron and about what the team almost sacrificed to make things right, and he's not a stupid guy. If he hasn't already, he's bound to figure it out soon. So why is he bothering with Tony?

Tony rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Maybe Clint wasn't too far off about the schoolkid crush after all," he mutters aloud. "If I had pigtails, he'd be pulling them."

"That makes for a charming picture. You should consider it."

Tony relaxes in spite of himself. That voice is too familiar to do anything but. "Hey there. Did you get homesick?"

Vision phases through the wall. His feet don't touch the floor until he makes it all the way through and reestablishes his density. "I have been interfacing with your intelligence system since late this morning, but thought it wiser not to alert you."

"You can do that? Man, I'm going to have to rethink my entire security system. Does it count as being hacked if technically you used to be part of the network itself?" Tony shakes his head. "I'm going to say it doesn't. My reputation is safe."

Vision wisely ignores his ramble and instead crosses the room to consider the view out the window. "You have made some progress with Loki."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"But he does not trust you."

Tony shrugs. "Well, no, but it's not like I trust him, either, so we're more or less even with that one. It's fine. I'll get what we need from him. Trust me."

Tony immediately regrets saying that. He doesn't know if Vision has access to JARVIS's memory records—sometimes Vision does or says things that make Tony think he does, but other times he only responds to Tony with a blank look, which is really disheartening—and, to be honest, he isn't sure how he feels about that, but the possibility exists that Vision has maybe ten or fifteen years' worth of JARVIS's memories to tell him trusting Tony is a terrible idea.

This time, though, Vision doesn't even respond with a blank look, much less a snide comment. Instead, he touches his fingertips to the window, then says, "He is not well."

Tony blinks. "Who, Loki? That's a given. He's completely off his rocker."

"No," Vision says. "I do not believe him to be mad. Merely... unwell."

"Like, sick? I was only joking about the space pox before." He furrows his brow. "But how sick are we talking? Should I be wearing a surgical mask or something?"

Vision shakes his head. "I doubt his malady is contagious, although it may be dangerous."

Loki's space pox is probably the least of Tony's worries, but still. Could this guy be any less specific? "Can you at least narrow it down? What's he sick with?"

"I'm not sure."

"Very helpful." Tony pours himself another scotch and, after a moment's thought, pours some into a second glass as well. He's mostly sure that Vision won't touch it, but even if he doesn't it's not like it'll go to waste. "But you're not here to chat, right? Are you checking up on me? That's sweet, really, but you didn't have to go to all that trouble."

Vision doesn't move away from the window. "I came only to observe, but I thought it prudent to tell you of Loki's ailment."

Because that was super helpful. "Great, thanks." He sniffs at his scotch, then glances up. "What language do Thor and Loki speak?"

Vision turns to consider him. "Need you ask?"

"Apparently. Is it English?"

Vision blinks, silent, and then shakes his head. "I do not know."

"Find out for me." If he figures out what language Loki actually speaks, maybe he can take a crash course and up his chances of eavesdropping and figuring out what's going on. He gulps down a mouthful of scotch and nearly chokes as Vision starts to fade away and he tries to speak to stop him. Smooth, Tony. Swallow, then talk. Vision probably doesn't know CPR. "And hey, one more thing. I need you to bring a message back to the team for me."

Vision re-solidifies and tilts his head to one side. "Go on."

He gestures with his glass. "Loki may not trust me, but I've got an idea that just might help change his mind."


	5. Chapter 5

Tony stays up most of the night watching television—not the news, because he can only stomach so much of that—and taking the remote control apart. By the time the sun comes up, he's watched more infomercials than should be legal and somehow swapped the functions of the MUTE and MENU buttons, but he's at least come to terms with the truth of the matter:

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, he's a bad guy now, so he might as well make the most of it.

When Loki ventures downstairs sometime just before noon, he looks vaguely startled to see Tony waiting for him, but he recovers quickly and offers Tony a raised, questioning eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"Hope you had a good nap, Sleeping Beauty, because today I'm putting you to work."

Loki's other eyebrow goes up to meet its twin. "I beg your pardon?"

"What, you didn't think you could crash here and not pay rent, did you? I've got plans and you're part of them now, so you're going to have to pull your weight. I mean, fair is fair, right? And hey, we're partners. That means we split the work and the credit." Tony grins. "Unless you don't think you can keep up."

Loki stares at him for a solid thirty seconds before he rolls his shoulders and ventures further into the room. "Be cautious, Stark. It would be such a blow to your ego if I met your challenge and you failed to do so yourself."

"Meaning?"

"You say we must each do half the work." Loki tsks. "You will have to try very hard to keep pace with me, despite your boasting."

"We'll see about that." Tony clicks on the television, which he left tuned to the news despite his reservations, and—conveniently—the broadcast immediately switches to its coverage of Captain America addressing a mess of reporters. He turns up the volume. "This has been looping all morning."

"We are calling on Iron Man to admit to the devastation he caused to the city of Baltimore and turn himself in to the proper authorities by the end of the day," Steve says on screen. "If he refuses to do so, we will take appropriate measures to bring him in as quickly and safely as possible. In the meantime, we're asking all citizens to report any sightings of Iron Man or Tony Stark. It's critical we have as much information as possible to—"

Tony clicks off the television. "See?"

Loki makes an 'mm' noise. "This is hardly unexpected."

"No, of course it isn't unexpected. But come on, do they really think I'm just going to walk into my local police department and tell them to arrest me? They just want to be able to say they were in the right when they come after me and people get hurt because of it. You know, so they can blame all the injuries and property damages on me because I didn't turn myself in and make it easy on them."

"Devious."

"Typical," Tony corrects. "This is what they always do. Well, not this time. This time, they're in for a surprise."

Loki watches him. "Whatever do you have in mind?"

"Well, I'm not going to turn myself in."

"Naturally."

"And if I let them come after me, they're just getting their way. So that's no good." Tony leans against the back of the couch. "I know you have all of those alien goons at your disposal. Just how many are there?"

Loki shrugs. "Enough."

"Yeah, sure, but how many?"

Loki frowns at him. "Enough," he repeats. "Perhaps instead of tailoring your idea around numbers, you should tell me what you are plotting so that I might know how to best accommodate you?"

Well, that didn't go as planned. Tony shrugs it off. "I'm thinking we go after them instead. I'm thinking you, me, and the brute squad, we take Avengers tower by force. We go, we see, we conquer. They're left without a home base and we have a super defensible HQ of our own. Perfect, right?"

"Ah," Loki says. "You intend to ambush them."

"Sort of, yeah."

Loki considers him, his head tilted slightly to one side, and then walks past him, gesturing over his shoulder as he heads toward the kitchen. "You forget, it seems, that your Avengers no longer use that tower as their primary hub. You know that, surely?"

Of course he does. The question is, how does Loki? "Right, I forgot. That's a pretty recent thing, you know, and I've been pretty out of the loop. My bad." He trails after Loki. "We could take it anyway. A sort of demoralizing thing."

"I think not."

"Why not?"

"It's not as defensible as you seem to think," Loki says. "The space above it is... Tenuous."

Tony files that information away for later, when he has time to make more sense out of it. "Okay, so we'll go after them someplace else. Come on. They think they can bring me in, and I want to give them the chance to prove it, then completely shove it in their faces when they can't. And they won't, not if it's you and me and we even the odds a bit more... Are you in?"

Loki frowns. "If your intentions are to martyr yourself..."

"What? Come on, me? You're kidding, right? I don't want to martyr myself. I just want them to see what they're really up against so they'll back off."

"Yes, because your former comrades are well known for surrendering when they are faced with overwhelming opposition." Loki stops in the center of the kitchen to survey the sea of mostly untouched appliances and cabinetry. "Such a confrontation would merely spur them on."

Tony frowns. "All right, so what do you think we should do? Wait here for them to come knocking on the front door? I've got to tell you, that didn't go so well for me the last time I tried it. My house sort of exploded. It wasn't a good day."

Loki waves a hand and all of the cabinets yawn open at once. He surveys the meager contents with obvious skepticism. "Given my efforts toward protecting your home, they would find that difficult. But yes, I read of that encounter. A cooler head might have served you better in that instance."

"Yeah, thanks." Tony shakes his head and opens the refrigerator, pulling out a box of leftover pizza. He removes a slice and sets the box on the counter as an open invitation to his demigod house guest. "You didn't answer my question. What do you think we should do?"

Loki waits for Tony to eat about half a slice of pizza before he removes a slice of his own and picks tentatively at the toppings with his fingers. "What is this, precisely?"

Tony swallows his mouthful. "Pizza. Bread, tomatoes, cheese, toppings. And you're stalling. Do you have an idea or not?"

Loki glances at him. "You are on the right track, I think, although your logic is flawed. You want to challenge the Avengers without allowing them to encroach on your territory. So why bother going to them at all? Why not send an intermediary instead?"

"Like one of your goons, you mean?"

Loki bites into his pizza slice and takes his time chewing it. "It would get your point across and illustrate that you do not stand alone. It will not stop them from attempting to apprehend you—"

"Us," Tony corrects.

Loki ignores him. "—but it may give them reason to regroup and reconsider their strategy, granting you—"

"Still us."

"—time to do the same."

Tony considers him. "Okay, so why is your plan better than my plan?"

"Mine does not leave you exposed."

It keeps Loki pretty well out of the way, too. There goes Tony's hopes of wrapping up this whole Loki situation quickly. Not only does it mean there's no chance of the Scooby gang getting their hands on Loki, but it also means they'll have to pick off Loki's goons one by one instead of all at once. Sure, one less goon is one less goon, but since Loki won't actually tell him how many there are in the first place, it doesn't get him very far.

Then again, maybe he just needs to take what he can get. If he can reduce Loki's army in size little by little, it means Loki will eventually be left without any reinforcements, right? And that means when Loki does finally decide to make his move, his force will be that much smaller. Okay. Maybe he can work with this.

Tony swallows another mouthful of pizza. "All right, yes, your plan is better. But we've got to send enough of your cronies to make it challenging for them. What do you think, ten? I mean, I don't know how much your guys can take, but I figure ten against the four of them—or the seven of them, who knows?—is pretty fair, right?"

"Three," Loki says in a tone that implies Tony is better off not arguing with him. "And I know just the trio."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. "The three who were here yesterday? You think they can take on Cap and the holograms?"

Loki blinks. "Holograms?"

"Joking. Can they take them?"

"Who knows?" Loki shrugs, clearly unconcerned. "It hardly matters."

Tony hesitates. "Why not? What if they can't?"

Loki starts on a second piece of pizza. Tony makes a mental note to serve pizza if he ever has to host a whole fleet of Asgardians; it seems to be a hit. "Then I imagine they will be imprisoned somewhere. You needn't worry. I assure you, they're accustomed to living in a cell."

"Yeah, but... Don't you need them? For something?" Otherwise, why had Loki busted them out of Asgard in the first place? Is Loki worried they'll act out or go against him or something? Is he trying to get rid of them before they have the chance, or is he just bored of them and interested in seeing how they'll do against the Avengers? Loki is nuts, but it has to be the first one, right? He wouldn't get rid of willing troops just for the entertainment value, would he? No. The three lizard guys must not be entirely on Loki's side.

And if that's the case, maybe this is more of a lucky break than Tony thought it was. If the Avengers do take these guys in, chances are Thor can talk to them, same as Loki can, and maybe he can convince them to spill the beans on Loki's plan—or, anyway, whatever they know about Loki's plan. Tony will have to suggest that to the team somehow without Loki catching wise, but how hard could that possibly be?

"Okay," Tony says, not waiting for Loki to answer his question. "We'll use them to send a 'don't mess with us or else' message. I like it. It's a good start." He leans back against the counter. "And after that? What's our end goal?"

Loki polishes off his pizza slice before he answers. "Let's first see how this strategy pans out, shall we?"

Ah, right, because that's a good point, too. What if the Avengers for some reason _don't_ win this one? If they don't win, then it means Loki can go ahead with whatever evil plan he has without worrying about the team stopping him. And it means Tony has to go along for the ride so he can figure out how to take him down all on his own.

This double agent thing is way more complicated than Natasha lets on.

Tony nods and rubs at the back of his neck. "Yeah, sure. We'll see how it goes first, then figure things out. Great. So... You're good, then? You've got this covered?"

"I do."

"Okay. I'll just go build something, I guess. Let me know if you decide you need something, or just tell me when the show is about to start, will you?"

Loki inclines his head in a way Tony assumes is meant to give his consent, and Tony takes the opportunity to leave and put some distance between him and his new supervillain roommate. He heads down to his workshop.

Speaking of, when he thinks about it, it really doesn't seem like this whole partnership thing benefits Loki at all, except for giving him room and board for a while. Loki doesn't really seem to need—or want—Tony's input, and so far he hasn't given any sign that he's particularly interested in Tony's varied skillset. Still, it's been a whole day and Loki has neither murdered him nor accused him of trying to undermine him. What is he planning? He's not hanging around for the company, that's for sure, and he's not 'helping' Tony out of the goodness of his heart, so he must anticipate having some use for Tony. But what?

Tony sighs and pats DUM-E as he walks in. "Okay, gang, I need to shut my brain off for a while. What have we got?"

U whistles and drops some half-finished thing onto the floor. Tony winces a bit as the metal hits the floor and some pieces spill out of the casing. Even so, he picks it up as he passes by and sets everything on the worktable.

"That'll do. Friday?"

' _Sir?_ '

"I need a soundtrack." He picks up his favorite soldering iron and roots around in a drawer until he finds his face shield. "Something loud. Lots of guitar."

Friday cues up some Aerosmith, which wasn't exactly what Tony had in mind but that will do in a pinch. He shrugs and gets to work.

It's easy to get lost in his work, and it's hard to tell if his new project will wind up as an effective semi-conductor of some kind or as terrible modern art, but it at least serves the purpose of getting Tony out of his own head. It's hard to worry about the possible end of the world—and his inevitable role in it—when he's elbow deep in scrap metal and circuitry.

He's not sure exactly how long he's cloistered in his shop, but everything comes rushing back to him the moment he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns to see Loki standing behind him. He wipes his forearm across his brow, undoubtedly streaking oil and grease in its wake, and gestures for Friday to turn down the music.

"Do you always sneak up on people like this?" he asks.

Loki shrugs. "It is merely particularly easy in your case. You should really be more cautious."

That's not ominous at all. "I'll keep that in mind." He frowns. "Did you want something?"

He inclines his head toward the stairs. "It's time."

"Time?" He realizes after he says it and shakes his head before Loki can answer. "For the three stooges to meet the Avengers, right. Got it." He pulls down a holoscreen. "I can have FRIDAY stream it down here. Should we make popcorn? This seems like a popcorn sort of flick."

"I thought you might prefer to be more... present."

Tony pauses. "How do you mean?"

Loki offers Tony his hand. "I'll show you."

Tony hesitates a moment before he takes Loki's hand, and when he does, Loki grips it tight, almost as though he can sense Tony's trepidation and doesn't intend to let him change his mind and withdraw. Of course, Loki's tight grip immediately gives Tony second thoughts, but before he can react, the world starts to race by, speeding by in streaks of light. It's at best unsettling, and Tony finds himself pushing closer to Loki so that he can grab Loki's arm with his free hand and hang on for dear life. He clenches his eyes shut to keep from getting sick.

Eventually—it feels like forever, but in actuality it's probably less than a minute—Loki pulls his hand from Tony's and pats his arm in a show of reassurance. "We're here."

"What?" Tony opens one eye, then the other, and then he lets go of Loki's arm. "Where...." He stops as he takes in the view. It's a familiar one. "New York. We're in New York?" He goes to the edge of the roof and glances down. "We are on a very high roof in New York. Oh. Shit."

Behind him, Loki chuckles. "Scared of heights, Iron Man?"

"No," he says, perhaps a little too quickly. He looks down again and winces, then takes a few large steps away from the edge, keeping an eye on Loki all the while to make sure he doesn't get any funny ideas. "Okay, so here we are. Where are the goons?"

Loki gestures vaguely toward downtown. "I'm sure we'll see them soon enough."

"Swell." He is silent a moment before he continues. "We're probably early, you know. It'll take the Avengers some time to get here." And in the meantime, who knows how many people will be in danger? This idea is sounding worse and worse by the second. Whose stupid idea was this, anyway?

Loki makes a disdainful noise with his tongue. "Don't be ridiculous," he says. "Naturally I sent word ahead."

As if to punctuate Loki's statement, an explosion rocks downtown and a car goes flying, smoke trailing in its wake. Tony pivots back, his entire body going cold as he hears car alarms and—worse—screams wailing from the streets below. He has to stop himself from calling for his suit—although from here, even if the call did go through, the suit probably wouldn't make it from Malibu in time to be of any use—and settles for balling his hands into fists instead. His fingernails cut into his palms; he doesn't care.

There are people down there, and they're scared. They could get hurt. And he can't do anything about it. But this is for the best, right? If it means Loki will trust him enough to give him some leverage, if it means the Avengers will have a shot at keeping the Infinity Stones safe and out of Loki's reach, then his having to stand by and watch as innocent people suffer... It'll be worth it, right? Maybe?

Something else explodes, although this time Tony can't see what it is, and Loki makes a thoughtful noise.

"Their time in a cell doesn't seem to have impacted their skill," he notes. "Or perhaps the targets are easier here? Who can say? I do hope your friends—"

Tony is quick to correct him. "They're not my friends."

Loki glances at him and lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Whatever they are, I do hope they arrive soon. Otherwise this will be quite dull."

Dull? Tony opens his mouth to tear Loki a new one, but he quickly rethinks that and snaps it shut again. He takes a deep breath before he does finally speak, and even then he has to fight to keep his voice steady. "I thought I told you I wasn't into this whole murder thing."

Loki tsks. "This isn't murder. It is a buildup to war."

Tony furrows his brow. "Is that what you're after? War?"

"It is what we must prepare for," Loki answers, and his voice is shadowed with something that Tony thinks almost sounds like regret, but that can't be right. Can it?

The sound of the Avenger's jet—Tony would know the purr of that engine anywhere—pulls him from his thoughts, and Tony turns and looks up as the jet comes out of stealth mode and flies right over his head, toward the battle. He tries not to show his relief, in case Loki notices, and he relaxes his hands as soon as he sees Thor and Cap barreling out of the hanger. It's about time they showed up.

Tony glances Loki's way to see the god's eyes tracking Thor, which isn't shocking. The look that passes over Loki's face in that split second, though—the one that is probably made up of three parts hope and two parts wistfulness—that kind of is.

Tony shakes his head. The longer he hangs around Loki, the less sense things make. What the hell kind of game is Loki playing, and is it just Tony, or does it seem as though Loki doesn't know which side he wants to root for?

There's probably not much point in trying to figure out the god of chaos, though, so Tony concentrates instead on what's happening in the city—or at least what little of it he can see. There's a figure on a faraway roof that is probably Clint, and now and then Thor or Falcon make an appearance in the air, but there's no sign of War Machine—maybe Tony put Rhodey's suit through too much back in Baltimore?—and it's next to impossible to make out what's happening on the ground. Still, the explosions seem to get tighter and then they seem to lessen, probably as Loki's trio finally comes face to face with Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and Tony takes that as a good sign.

It's a while—Tony isn't sure how long exactly, but a while—before Loki scoffs. "This is hardly worth watching. Let us go."

Tony glances his way. "Don't you want to see who wins?"

Loki waves a dismissive hand. "Your former comrades are on the cusp of victory. I hardly need to see just how they achieve it."

Tony frowns. "How do you know they're winning?"

"You can't see it?"

Tony blinks and looks back across the city, toward the battle. He squints, trying to distinguish between figures, and then he shakes his head. "No, not really."

Loki shrugs and turns away. "They are. Come. We must leave before they realize we are here."

"Seriously? You're giving up?"

Loki arches an eyebrow in his direction. "I am making a strategic withdrawal. I've seen how your team fights now. It has progressed somewhat since my last visit. Now I can take those changes into account." He holds an arm out for Tony to grasp. When Tony doesn't immediately move to take it, he frowns. "Now, Stark, unless you would rather face the Avengers without your armor."

Well, that's pretty good motivation. Tony steps over and slings his arm through Loki's. "For the record, I'm usually not the one acting as arm candy," he says, not expecting Loki to get it. He's surprised when the corners of Loki's mouth quirk up in what might be the start of a smile, but he can't keep his eyes open long enough to find out when Loki does whatever it is he does to whisk them back to Malibu.

When they finally arrive and Loki takes his arm away, Tony has to lean heavily against the worktable to keep himself upright. This teleportation thing is not as smooth a ride as he'd hoped it would be. Yikes. How do Asgardians not make themselves sick doing this kind of thing?

"Okay," he says once he feels a little less sick to his stomach. "So we lost. It's cool. You saw how those guys operate—although let's be honest, I probably could have told you whatever you wanted to know about that—and now we can regroup while they get your guys comfortable in their new cells. So what are you thinking? Full-on assault? Take 'em while they're still recovering?"

Tony regrets saying that the moment he opens his mouth. What if Loki agrees to it? Tony has no idea how many more troops Loki has—or how many more he considers expendable. The Avengers did okay with these first three, but they might not be so lucky next time. If Loki decides to strike while the Avengers are sorting themselves out...

Loki shakes his head. "No."

"No? Okay. So what, then?"

Loki doesn't answer, and when Tony looks, the god seems to be staring at nothing. His gaze is cloudy, but his breath comes in short, quick bursts. Almost... Actually, almost exactly like what happened last night.

Tony hesitates. "Loki?" When he doesn't get a response, he goes over and tries snapping his fingers in front of Loki's face. "Loki, seriously, this is freaking me out. Loki?"

Loki seems to come back to himself in a rush, and he straightens suddenly, taking in a sharp breath and blinking a few times before his eyes focus again. He furrows his brow, apparently surprised to find Tony so close to him, and then shakes his head. "I—"

"Is that happening a lot?" Tony interrupts.

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?"

"This weird pseudo-catatonia thing. Is that happening to you a lot?"

Loki is silent a moment as he considers Tony, and then he turns away. "It is none of your concern, Stark."

It should probably at least be a little his concern, shouldn't it? Still, it's pretty clear Loki doesn't want to talk about it, so Tony lets it go. "Suit yourself. So do you want to talk about our strategy now or..."

Loki keeps his back to Tony angles toward the stairs as he walks away. "I will worry over that. You needn't bother."

"But I—"

"Carry on," Loki says, and he disappears up the stairs.

Tony stares after him. Why is it that every time he thinks he might be making progress, Loki makes a point of putting him back at arm's length? He has to be doing it on purpose. Is it a power play? Is he trying to prove to Tony that he's holding all the cards? Because, really, Tony doesn't need the reminder. He knows full well that Loki is calling the shots, and he's okay with that—at least, he is for now, while he's still trying to work his way into Loki's inner circle.

And come on, hasn't he made it perfectly clear that he's letting Loki take charge? The guy is pretty much making all the decisions with little to no input from Tony, and Tony is going along with it. So just what is Loki trying to prove, and to whom?

Ugh. He doesn't have time for this sort of thing. Loki is probably just trying to mess with him, and that's fine. He can handle that. He has bigger things to worry about.

Things like getting a message back to the Avengers without Loki noticing.

Tony didn't exactly plan for Loki to commandeer his 'attack them at the tower' plan, and he'd sort of hoped Loki would go for it and expose himself and his entire army and Tony would be done with all of this. Hell, even if the Avengers hadn't won, it would have revealed how many people—well, aliens—Loki has on his side and give the team an idea of what they're up against, and it would have made Tony's job as villain du jour at least a little easier. Loki's modified plan ruined that chance, but there's still an opportunity to question the three goons and see if they have any answers.

Thing is, although Tony is pretty sure SHIELD under the direction of Nick Fury would have immediately jumped on that chance, he's not so sure Steve will—or, if he does, if he'll have any idea what questions to ask. If Tony can just get a message out, offer a little guidance...

But how? It's not like he can just pick up the phone. Even though he's pretty sure no one is monitoring his communication channels, Loki regardless has a bad habit of popping up at the most inconvenient times, and who knows what Loki would do if he caught Tony in the act? It wouldn't be pretty, that's for sure.

It would be simple if JARVIS was still around. The benefit to having a learning AI came with the AI getting to know patterns and trends—to getting to know Tony so well that Tony doesn't have to say everything he wants out loud. He could just spit out a few innocuous phrases and bam, JARVIS would find a way to relay a message. And FRIDAY is great, sure, but it's not as easy. She's still too new, too raw. Even if Tony did figure out how to convey that he wanted to send out a message, he's not sure FRIDAY would have a clue what message to relay. In time, sure, but the longer he's trying to dupe Loki, the better Loki's chances of figuring it all out. Tony doesn't have that kind of time, and Earth probably doesn't, either.

Then again, maybe there's another way. If Tony can film a message and encrypt it, disguise it somehow—maybe as a rebuttal to Steve's earlier call to turn himself in—maybe the code will trigger something left over from JARVIS's programming in Vision and Vision can pass the message on to the rest of the team. That might work, assuming Vision and JARVIS maintain some kind of link.

"FRIDAY, set the stage of a news blurb, okay?" He pulls down a holoscreen so that he can work out an encryption key. "We're going to interrupt nationwide broadcasts."

' _You don't think that's a little excessive, sir?_ '

"I like to make a statement." He encrypts his encryption for good measure. "Besides, no one is going to want to miss my first villain monologue, trust me. Ratings will be through the roof." And his public approval numbers—and Stark Industries' stocks—will be in the toilet, but he'll figure out some way to redeem himself later, when all of this is over and done with.

Maybe he can invent some kind of memory eraser. Or is forcing the entire world to have selected amnesia too evil genius-y? Maybe he's been hanging around Loki too long already.

Tony finishes his encryption with a flourish and feeds it to FRIDAY as he turns to station himself in front of his webcam. "We all set?"

' _I suppose, sir_.'

"Great. Roll 'em."


	6. Chapter 6

Loki clearly isn't keeping close tabs on him, because it's hours before he shows up in the workspace and turns a stormy glare on Tony. "What did you do?"

"Oh, Lokes, hey. I was just thinking about ordering dinner. How does Chinese sound? Lo mein? Beef and broccoli?"

"Stark..."

Loki is all but shaking with what is probably barely repressed rage, but Tony pushes anyway. "Yeah, you're right, you're not really a Chinese food kind of guy. Maybe sushi is more your speed? I know a great place."

Loki slams his palm against the wall, although not hard enough to make a mark in the drywall, and something across the room starts to smoke. DUM-E makes distressing noises next to it; Loki doesn't seem to notice.

"So... No on the sushi?"

Loki makes a sound that falls somewhere between a growl and a curse, and when he speaks again, he manages to make just about every word sound like a threat. "You issued a statement, Stark?"

"Of course I did. That's pretty much antihero 101, isn't it? Maybe I should have run it by my PR folks first, I admit, but I was feeling pretty good about it and I just figured, well, why not? It's what the public's been waiting for from the start, so there wasn't much point in sitting on it..."

Loki narrows his eyes. "And what, precisely did you say?"

"You didn't see it?" And that is a surprise, because if Loki didn't see it, how did he find out about it? Did one of his goons tell him? Does that mean the goons are somewhere with a working television? If so, that does narrow things down a bit.

"No," Loki answers, all but spitting the word out.

Tony shrugs. "Oh, well, that's an easy fix. FRIDAY, you want to pull it up, play it back? Thanks." He takes a seat, making sure to pick a stool with wheels in case Loki comes after him and he needs to make a quick getaway. "It's nothing to get worked up over. You'll see."

The glare Loki turns on him doesn't imply he's convinced, and Tony is a little grateful when FRIDAY starts the video and Loki's gaze snaps away.

On screen, Tony adjusts the length of his shirt sleeves and offers the camera a cocky smile. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm interrupting this broadcast—and every other broadcast, so don't try changing the channel—to send a very important message to the Avengers and their affiliates. Captain, since I'm sure you're watching, I just want to make myself clear: Don't threaten me again."

Loki glances Tony's way; Tony keeps his eyes trained on the screen and pretends not to notice.

Pre-recorded Tony shrugs. "Sure, you didn't have too hard a time of it today, but, man, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's lots, lots more where that came from, and unlike your ragtag band of misfits, my guys don't show restraint. So this is your first and last warning, Avengers. Don't mess with me." He flashes a grin. "We'll now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. JARVIS, cut the feed."

The screen disappears as the video ends and Tony turns to Loki, spreading his hands. "See? No harm no foul. Nothing to worry about."

Loki's jaw works as though he is literally chewing over his words, but his apparent restraint is somewhat belied by his balled fists. "You..."

"I told them all to back off _and_ showed them a little of what I can do. Taking over the airwaves isn't exactly within scope for your average layperson, but it's pretty much a walk in the park for me. Subtle, I know, but I think they'll get the message."

"You openly told the world that you've forsaken the Avengers," Loki says, his words clipped.

"Well, yeah, but no more than Cap did before." Tony gets to his feet and shrugs. "Come on, everyone knows that asking someone to turn themselves in to the police is basically the same as pointing a finger at them telling everyone they did something bad. At this point I'm just following the status quo."

Loki hisses out a breath between his teeth. "But tell me, Stark. Is it true?"

What? Tony blinks, confused. "Well, sure. I mean, I told you I left the team. I don't see why that would—"

The rumbling noise is the only warning Tony gets, but it's just enough warning that he manages to duck and cover his head before the explosion hits. He doesn't dare to lift his head until his ears stop ringing, and he immediately looks over his shoulder to assess the damage. He's not sure what exactly exploded, but the damage seems pretty well contained. Still...

"What the fuck was that about?" he demands, but when he looks back to where Loki was standing, he finds himself alone. He frowns and dusts himself off. "Is he still in the vicinity, FRIDAY?"

' _Upstairs, sir_ ,' she answers as something crashes and shatters upstairs. Tony winces. ' _I recommend sheltering in place for the time being._ '

"Yeah, good call." He backtracks to consider the remnants of whatever project it was that Loki exploded. It's pretty wrecked, but nothing extends past a radius no longer than Tony's arm, as though it was intentionally contained. Loki's doing, probably, but why would he bother?

Because he doesn't want to hurt Tony, presumably, but that doesn't really make sense, either. Loki is a pretty impulsive guy, based on what Tony knows of him. Why would he hold himself back now?

Any why is he so pissed about Tony's announcement, and why ask Tony if he's seriously not an Avenger anymore? He's been telling Loki that all along and it's been fine. Why get upset now? What's changed?

Well, it's public now. That's changed. Tony said the words; he can't just take them back if he changes his mind. But shouldn't that make Loki happy? Shouldn't that help erase any doubts that Tony might be lying?

Or has Loki been counting on Tony lying to him? Was he hoping Tony would maintain some link to the Avengers? Why? To keep tabs on him? To use him as a hostage if things went sour?

Tony rubs at his eyes. "Or maybe he's just as insane as ever," he mutters to himself. It would fit, in at least the sense that insanity means Tony can't actually rule anything out, but it's not exactly helpful, and Loki has been pretty rational—for him—so far, except for his penchant for making things explode and his unexplained periods of catatonia.

So what is it, then? What's going on?

What the heck is Loki trying to do?

Tony sighs. "Keep tabs on Loki," he instructs FRIDAY. "Let me know if he leaves, if he has any visitors, when they leave... Everything. I want to know about it." And, maybe more importantly, he doesn't want Loki to catch him by surprise. That Loki waited to break anything—explosion aside—until he was away from Tony is a good sign, but Tony doesn't want to take any chances. What if the next thing Loki decides to explode is Tony's head? He knows he won't be able to stop it, but he'd at least like to see it coming.

Tony runs his fingers through his hair as he pulls up some archive footage, starting with what he's managed to pull from his security cameras, and he runs it backward, switching camera rolls to follow Loki's path around the house during the past day and a half. There should be patterns, Tony figures, clues that might help him narrow down Loki's plans or his secret base or something. Maybe his conversations with visiting aliens can help, if Tony can figure out how to translate them. There's got to be something. Anything. Even if all he finds is something that explains Loki's sudden moodiness, he'll take it. He'd rather not blame all of this on insanity if he doesn't have to, especially if the actual reason can give some insight into Loki's undoubtedly twisted motives.

Honestly, though, all of the footage he has on Loki seems pretty innocuous. The guy spends a lot of time pacing and staring out the window, and except for his occasionally opening up a wormhole and either disappearing into it or letting some weird alien out of it, he seems like he should be the ideal houseguest. He doesn't do anything terribly out of the ordinary, and he makes for pretty mundane viewing, and it isn't long before Tony's attention starts to wander.

It's some kind of miracle—or maybe just sheer dumb luck—that he happens to look at the screen as Loki starts to talk to what looks like an empty room. Tony watches for a moment, then stops the tape and plays it from the beginning. Sure enough, Loki doesn't open a wormhole, no one walks in... It's just Loki, talking to himself.

"FRIDAY, do we have audio for this?"

' _I'll see, sir._ '

"Do that." Tony replays the clip. It's not long—a minute, tops—and Loki is completely still for about thirty seconds before it. One of his episodes, maybe? It certainly looks like one.

FRIDAY restarts the clip and syncs it to the audio. The sound is faint—Tony hasn't gotten around to upgrading all of his security protocols to include audio recording as well as visual, and he makes a mental note to work on that soon—but he can make out some of it.

Enough to realize Loki isn't actually talking to himself. Not exactly.

Tony thinks he knows the answer, but just in case... "FRIDAY, who are the Norns?"

' _They are figures in Norse mythology, sir. Women said to rule the destinies of gods and men, similar to the Greek fates._ '

"Gods and men," Tony repeats. "So, like, the gods the gods pray to, that sort of thing? Are they actually real?" He waves his hand to stop FRIDAY from answering. It doesn't really matter. If Tony is interpreting the video correctly, whether they're real or not, Loki is asking them for something. So, what? Is he praying or is he trying to phone a friend? And what exactly is he asking for?

Tony replays the clip, trying to pick out more words or visual clues—anything that might help him puzzle this out—but nothing jumps out at him. He shakes his head and turns off the security footage in favor of news clips from Loki's first visit to Earth. He's seen these a thousand times, and he's pretty sure he's gotten all of the information he can out of them, but maybe if he just keeps going over what he has, finally something will click.

DUM-E whirrs to get his attention, and Tony looks over to see the bot trying to re-piece together his exploded project. He shakes his head.

"Leave it. It's probably more functional this way anyway."

DUM-E answers with a sad series of mechanical whirring but obediently puts distance between itself and the wreckage. It continues to spin its treads, though, in what sort of looks like the bot equivalent of a toddler's potty dance.

Tony sighs and gets up. "Okay, okay, I'm looking. Quit doing that."

DUM-E nods its grabber and makes a happier whirring noise in response, which makes Tony smile in spite of himself. He rearranges a few twisted and scorched bits of metal and tries to figure out what DUM-E's issue might be. He doesn't see anything right away, and he frowns in DUM-E's direction.

"Are you just acting out for attention? Because I'm pretty sure we've talked about that. It's my thing. You can't have it." He shakes his head and uses the edge of his t-shirt to detach what little is left of the project's electrical panel and hold it up. He squints to assess the damage, then winces. "Yikes. It's a good thing I had that secondary grounder or Loki might have blown this whole place apart. I guess magic and electricity don't really mix."

DUM-E makes an unhappy noise. Tony glances his way.

"What now?" He sets down the panel and starts to kneel to see if by chance something wedged itself in one of DUM-E's joints and is causing the bot trouble, but he stops when something catches his eye. He looks back at the holoscreen, then jerks across the table to pause it.

It's footage from the battle in New York, grabbed from who knows what, and there's Loki, soaring along on one of the Chitauri's crafts and very definitely having one of his episodes. Tony recognizes that half-focused gaze from before. He starts to play the clip, and on screen Loki seems to shake himself out of his catatonia. He says something, apparently to himself, and then soars out of view.

"I don't suppose this one has audio?"

' _Only residual background noise, sir._ '

"Right." Tony wipes his hands on his jeans. "He looks pissed off. Is he praying again? Are angry prayers a thing? I feel like that could be a thing." If nothing else, the video is at least an indication that Loki's weird episodes aren't a new development. Probably.

His sample size is too small. He needs more evidence, more time, more—terrifying a thought as it is—exposure. He's running into the same walls as before: He just doesn't know enough about Loki to draw a solid conclusion. He needs someone who does.

He needs Thor.

Tony scrubs at his face with his hands. "The Avengers have definitely seen my message by now, right?"

' _I'm not sure how they could miss it, sir._ '

That's better than nothing. Now Tony just has to hope Vision retains enough of JARVIS's programming to detect and break the layers of encrypted metadata he added to his supervillain press debut, and that the team takes his advice. In the meantime, what? What would Natasha do? Some super cool spy thing, probably, but Tony is pretty sure he's too far away for smoke signals to work—and there's probably not a signal for 'hey Thor help me figure out what the fuck is going on with your brother before he turns on me'—and his Morse code is definitely not up to snuff. So what does that mean?

It means he sits around and waits for someone—Vision, probably—to show up and give him some answers, probably.

Tony huffs and slumps against the table. "I hate waiting," he laments.

"That's hardly surprising."

Well, that's convenient. Tony cranes his head to look around. "Vision? Where are you?"

"I remain at the training facility," Vision answers. "I have merely accessed your AI's programming and am reconfiguring it for this purpose."

That's convenient but disconcerting. Tony doesn't particularly like the idea of anyone—even Vision—rooting around in his things. He tries to ignore it, at least for now.

"You got my message, then?"

Vision makes an affirming noise. "It was clever to end your video as you did."

"Calling for JARVIS instead of FRIDAY, you mean? Yeah, I know." Tony had tried to make it a subtle enough clue that the team would pick up on it without Loki catching wise, and it seems like it worked. Good. "What have you guys found out?"

"Not a great deal. Thor is still speaking to the hostages."

Tony winces. "Don't say hostages. It makes us sound like bad guys."

Vision ignores him. "He has so far determined they are a minority in Loki's army. It seems they were not fully taken by Loki and his plan."

"I already knew that. Did they say what the plan was?"

"No."

"Yeah, then that's not helpful."

"Perhaps you should tell us what you are specifically looking for so that we might focus our questioning," Vision prompts.

Tony exhales, thinking. "I don't have anything specific. Just... I guess find out if Loki is working with someone. Someone aside from these guys, I mean. And me."

Vision pauses. "You think he has allied himself with someone?"

"I have a hunch." And, as he says it, he realizes it's true. He's been thinking about it for a while, though, and what if all those times he's caught Loki talking to himself on film, Loki wasn't actually talking to himself? Tony doesn't really know what Loki is capable of, so he can't rule anything out. He was able to mind control Clint; maybe he also has some way of communicating with people who aren't close by—not quite telepathically, but close. And if he does, wouldn't it make sense that he'd be in contact with someone whose opinions actually mean a damn to him? He could be talking to his army, sure, but it seems like he prefers to do that in person, and it's not like he puts much stock in his henchmen's opinions—he more or less sacrificed three of them to the Avengers because they argued with him. He doesn't think a lot of Tony's opinions, either, so whoever he's talking to, they must at least be on equal footing with Loki. Right?

If so, then the Avengers have a lot more to worry about than just Loki.

"I will convey that to Thor," Vision concedes. "Is there anything else?"

"Yeah." Tony straightens. "Also, sometimes Loki seems like he's somewhere else. I mean, his body is here, but his mind is definitely not in the moment. Know what I mean?"

"Yes. I've seen it."

Right, the night before. Tony nods. "Ask Thor if he has."

If Tony is right about the telepathy thing—and he realizes it's a bit of a stretch—then maybe that explains Loki's episodes, too. Maybe all those times Loki goes blank, someone is trying to get his attention to talk to him. It doesn't explain everything, and maybe it's completely out there, but it's something.

"I will," Vision says. He pauses, almost as though he's considering something, and then says, "Thor did mention something after this latest encounter."

"With the goons?" Tony runs a hand through his hair. "Lay it on me."

"He said it was typical of Loki to send others in his stead so that he may do his work in the shadows, where he will not be noticed." Vision waits a beat. "He implied he was relieved to see Loki resorting to his old tactics."

"Why? That doesn't..." Tony trails off. It does make sense, just not in the way Thor probably meant. If Thor's stories are all true. Loki would let Thor and the other warriors be the center of attention and he would make things happen while people weren't paying him any mind. Then, when Loki first came to Earth, he did exactly the opposite: He made himself the showman so that other people could do things behind the scenes. And he did it more than once.

So what does that mean? If Tony's right, it means Loki plays to people's strengths. He uses people, sure, but he lets them use him, too, if it means getting what he wants in the end. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's good strategy, in a sense.

All of this so far has been too easy. Tony has thought that from the start. Loki agreed to partner with him after almost no persuasion whatsoever, and then he got pissed off when he thought Tony had seriously quit the Avengers. Maybe he agreed to partner with Tony because he thought he could use Tony's links to the Avengers—because he expected Tony to be working against him—and Tony's publicly quitting the team spoiled all his plans.

That means Loki wants something with the Avengers. He has to. But what? If he wanted to take them out, he could have done it already. He has a whole army of aliens at his disposal, and he's manipulative enough that he could probably elicit enough information out of Tony to launch an effective surprise attack. That can't be it.

Think, Tony. What did Loki say earlier? That he wanted to start a war?

No. That they were preparing for war. That he was building up to a war. Against who?

A chill runs down Tony's back and makes his hair stand on end. "FRIDAY, where's Loki?"

' _In the guest room, sir_.'

Tony is halfway across the room before FRIDAY can finish the sentence, and up the stairs moments later, not bothering to say anything to Vision. He gets to the room Loki has claimed and presses his ear to the door to listen. He doesn't hear anything, so he reaches for the doorknob and walks right in.

Immediately, Loki and four aliens with pointy ears turn to look at him.

"Ah," Tony says intelligently.

The four pointy-eared aliens pull weapons out of seemingly nowhere—sharp things, mostly, which Tony finds a little offensive given that he's up against aliens, who should definitely be a little more high-tech—and point them his way. Tony considers just shutting the door and pretending that would make this go away, but he holds his ground and sincerely wishes he'd brought an Iron Man gauntlet up with him. What was he thinking? Loki is living here now. He should never go anywhere without some kind of weapon.

Also, it probably wouldn't have killed him to knock.

Loki makes a tsking noise and puts himself between the aliens and Tony. "Is that any way to treat your host?" he chastises.

One of the aliens says something, and its voice sounds a bit like hostile wind chimes. It's weird.

It's evidently not very nice, either, because Loki shakes his head and cuts Wind Chimes off. "You really must learn to mind your manners. I believe we are done here."

Wind Chimes and one of his friends start to protest, but Loki ignores them and creates another one of his wormholes, gesturing for them to make their way through. The aliens are reluctant, but they do it—although not before Wind Chimes prods his pointy weapon thing—is it a spear? It kind of looks like a spear—in Tony's direction. Tony is far enough away that it doesn't hit its mark, and Wind Chimes looks momentarily disappointed before he disappears into the portal.

Once everything is back in its rightful place, Loki arches an eyebrow at Tony. "Did you need something?"

"FRIDAY was supposed to warn me if you had guests," he complains.

Loki's other eyebrow goes up, momentarily, and then he lowers them both. "Is that so?"

"Well, you know, I've got to keep tabs. Make sure you're following the rules."

"Of course." Loki turns away and goes to the glass wall in what Tony interprets as Loki's way to dismissing him. "Was that all?"

"Not even close." Tony goes further into the room, although he leaves the door open in case he needs to make a quick getaway. "What's going on, Loki?"

Loki glances at him over his shoulder, eyebrows arched. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're up to something. I mean, you're always up to something. But this time you're up to something that involves me and my planet and I know there's something bigger at stake here that you're not telling me." He hesitates. "Whose side are you on, exactly?"

"My own," Loki answers, turning fully back toward Tony.

Tony shakes his head. "Are you using me?"

"Of course."

He can't say he's surprised. That was sort of a given. "Are you trying to take over the world?"

Loki wrinkles his nose. "No."

"You were last time."

"Was I?" Loki tilts his head to one side, apparently considering his own question. "I suppose it did appear that way."

"What do you mean, it appeared that way? You pretty much said that was what you were after." Although, now that Tony thinks about it, he's not sure he remembers Loki actually saying that. Lots of people said it—Fury chief among them—but did Loki ever actually say the words? Tony frowns. "What's your plan, Loki?"

Loki offers him a smile. "It seems rather late in our partnership for you to try teasing out my motivations, Stark. Are you having second thoughts?"

"Answer my question."

"My plans are my own, and they will remain as such."

"No," Tony says. "That's not good enough. You're the one calling this a partnership, so show me you mean it. What's your plan? You say it's not world domination. Fine. I'll take your word for it. Just tell me what it is. Is it revenge? Are you after the Avengers? Are you after Thor?" He pauses. "Are you after the Infinity Stones?"

Surprise briefly flits across Loki's face, but he masks it with a blink. "What do you know of the stones?"

"Nothing. Just what Thor's told me." He searches Loki's purposefully blank expression, trying to find a hint of an answer. He comes up empty. "What are they?"

"They are ancient constructs of power. Power that existed long before the universe came into being." Loki meets Tony's gaze. "Power few can wield and fewer still can control."

"You did, though. Your scepter had a stone in it."

Loki nods. "As did the Tesseract. Yes, I have wielded that power before. Regardless, I do not want the stones."

"Oh. Thor thought maybe you did."

Loki huffs a breath. "Of course he would assume..." He trails off, shaking his head. "He is wrong. I have yet to rid myself of the Mind Stone's influence as it is. I hardly want to—"

Tony interrupts him. "What do you mean?"

Loki frowns at him. "The Mind Stone. It was in the scepter."

"And that's what you used to brainwash Clint?"

Loki shrugs. "If you want to call it that, yes. I suppose."

"So when you say you've been influenced by it..." Tony hesitates. "Someone used it on you? When? Before New York? It would have to be before New York. Before you came to Earth, even. Right?"

Loki doesn't answer. Tony takes that as confirmation.

"Who?"

Almost a full minute passes before Loki answers, and when he does, he clearly does so reluctantly. "Someone far more destructive—and more ambitious—than I."

That can't be good. Tony swallows. "So when you said you were preparing for war... Did you mean a war against him?"

"Yes."

"And he's on his way here?"

"He is."

"How do you know?" Tony waves his hand to stop Loki before he can answer. "The stone, right. But you're not under his spell or whatever, are you? I mean, Natasha cured Clint by hitting him really hard, and you got beat up by the Hulk, who hits way harder than Natasha, so..."

"He does not currently control me, no."

"But?"

Loki lets out a breath—not quite a sigh, but close. "The Mind Stone is capable of many things beyond simple influence, Stark."

Right, because mind control isn't bad enough. "Like what? What did he do to you?"

"He created a means of directly accessing my mind. A pathway, of sorts." Loki clasps his hands behind his back. "The connection was severed, I thought, by the time Thor brought me with him to Asgard, but it seems he has found some means of reestablishing it."

Tony stares at him. "So what you're telling me is that some guy is out to destroy the world as I know it, and he's camping out inside your head? Is that it?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Stark. It's far worse than that."

"How? How can it be worse than that?"

"For one thing, your world is just the start."

"So, what, he's going to destroy the universe? Can he even do that?" Tony shakes his head. "Don't answer that. Let's go back to the really weird part. You say he's in your head. What does that mean, exactly? Can he read your mind? Does he know what you're doing right now?"

"No. Not yet."

"Meaning?"

Loki looks away. "He has reestablished the connection, but it is weak enough that I am able to block his attempts at using it."

Oh, good. "That's a relief. So all you've got to do is keep doing what you're doing and—"

"The connection is strengthening, Stark. Every time he accesses it, it is more difficult to fend him off. Once he seizes control, I do not know what will happen."

Tony is silent as he tries to process that. Okay. Some mysterious big bad has a way into Loki's head, and Loki is trying to mentally fight him off and prep Earth to take the guy on when he does finally get here and control an army of Asgardian convicts and keep the Avengers from taking him into custody or sending him back to Asgard. He's got a lot on his plate.

No wonder he decided to let Tony team up with him.

"You're being awfully honest right now."

Loki shrugs. "There's hardly anything to gain by lying about it."

That doesn't make it any less weird, but it's fair. "Okay."

"No more questions?"

"No." And he doesn't have any, really. Honestly, he's kind of amazed he's gotten as much as he has. Loki came clean with him, which is a pretty big deal. And, well, it seems like Loki is technically trying to protect Earth, and that's good. Tony would like to encourage that sort of behavior. Maybe he should return the favor. Loki probably deserves at least that, and it's more or less the least he can do. "Okay, so, full disclosure? I'm supposed to be working undercover to figure out what you're up to and report back to the Avengers so they can stop you."

"I had assumed, yes."

"But you weren't positive."

Loki glances at him. "You gave me some reason to doubt you," he admits.

Tony nods. "Right, the video. That's fine." He rubs the back of his neck. "Since you never told Thor all of this, I'm guessing you don't really want it getting back to my team?"

"Not particularly."

"You'd rather they think you're a bad guy?"

"I would rather they prepare to defend against some larger threat, no matter what they think the source might be." Loki shakes his head. "I have no particular fondness for your realm, Stark, but I do have reason to see the Titan felled—preferably well before he reaches Asgard."

The Titan. Tony files the name away for later. "All right. I'm not dumb enough to think you're completely on our side, but at least it sounds like we're after the same thing here. We both want to stop the bad guy. So how about this: I'll stick around, let the Avengers think I'm still trying to figure you out, and I'll help you find a way to get this guy out of your head. Meanwhile, you do whatever it is you were planning to do to get the world ready to fight back. Sound fair?"

Loki frowns. "You think you can break his hold on me? Impossible."

He spreads his hands. "I'm a super genius. Doing the impossible is sort of my thing. So how about it. Are you in?"

Loki considers him for a moment, silent, and then inclines his head slightly. "Very well."

"I've got one condition, though."

"And that is?"

"When it comes time to fight him, you fight with us, and then you let Thor take you home." He holds out his hand. "We got a deal?"

Loki doesn't answer.

Tony keeps his hand extended. "Loki, do we have a deal?"

He sighs and takes Tony's hand, grasping it loosely in his own. "Very well, Stark. We have a deal."

Tony withdraws his hand. "No toast this time?"

The corners of Loki's mouth quirk slightly upward. "I see no need for one, do you? I hardly have reason to want you drunk at this time."

"Sneaky bastard." Tony offers up a smile, just in case Loki can't tell that he's sort of joking, and then he drags his fingers through his hair and looks away. "So I guess my job now is... Well, I guess it's to keep up my half of the deal and find a way to keep this guy out of your head, right?"

Loki inclines his head slightly. "I would not be opposed to that, no, but if it is beyond your means..."

Tony waves a hand. "Yeah, how about you worry about your end of the deal and I'll worry about mine? I've got this. You'll see."

Because hey, Tony has science on his side. How hard could it possibly be?


	7. Chapter 7

As it turns out, severing a mental link is pretty damn hard.

"I need a control," he complains to Loki when the god deigns to visit him in his workshop what has to be hours later.

Loki, for his part, ignores him in favor of setting a Chinese food container on the table. Tony has no idea where it came from and he's pretty sure he doesn't care; he's starving.

Loki waits until Tony has ripped open the container and started to devour the mystery meat—it's probably chicken. It tastes like chicken—within before he says anything. "You need what?"

"A control." Tony swallows and gestures with his chopsticks. "You know. An untampered with sample to compare you against. How am I supposed to know if I've fixed you if I don't have anything to check my work? I need another Asgardian."

Loki frowns. "Strictly speaking, I am not..." He trails off. "That does not matter. You will have to do without."

"Oh, come on. All I need is a scan of their brain, I think. Ten minutes. They're in, they're out. Would Thor work? I could figure out something to tell him to get him to let me scan his brain. Easy."

"Assuming he has a brain to scan in the first place," Loki mutters. He crosses his arms and leans slightly against the wall. "As I said, you will have to do without."

"Then how will I know if I've done it?"

"I'll know."

Tony wrinkles his nose. "Really? Because it sounded to me like you thought you knew a couple years back when you went back to Asgard and you were wrong. We want to be sure this time, don't we?"

Loki glares at him. He doesn't say anything, but his message reads loud and clear: Back off.

Tony raises his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay, be that way. We'll ignore common sense and just go with your gut. Fine. But you've at least got to let me do a scan on you, okay? I've got to have some idea of what I'm working with. I mean, I don't even know if you have the same kind of biology I do. Do you? Have all the same bits and pieces, that is. Inside. Outside, sure, yes, obviously, but are all the inner workings the same?"

"I've no idea."

That's a start. Tony grins. "Okay, step one. I'm going to do a bioscan on you and then FRIDAY is going to put it on the 3D mapper so we can dissect you. It'll be fun."

"Fun?"

"Well, interesting. Same thing." He closes up his food container and sets it back on the table. "FRIDAY, is the bioscan operational?" He looks to Loki. "I set this thing up years ago, when I thought I was dying of a thing. Totally legit. Built it myself. Only mild radiation. Of course, Bruce is pretty much the poster child of how dangerous mild radiation can be, but we won't worry about that. I rebuilt it. No reason. Didn't need to. Just felt like it." He circles around the table to fiddle with a control panel. "It's probably still totally safe. You're immortal, right? No chances I'll make your insides explode and kill you by accident?"

Loki furrowed his brow, not moving from his spot on the wall. "Have you slept at all?"

"Not in days. Come on, step right up, let's give this baby a whirl." He smacks the side of the console and the casing creaks a little. He thinks he sees Loki wince.

"Stark, I would rather you not experiment on me until after you are well-rested. Consider it a personal preference."

"What, you don't trust me? I'm fine, and there's still tons to do. We'll sleep when we're dead."

Loki sighs and pushes off the wall, approaching him, and he reaches toward Tony's head. Tony flinches away and Loki gives him a pointed look. "Trust works both ways," he reminds him.

"My way doesn't involve touching."

"It's perfectly safe. There's only a small chance I'll melt your brain."

Tony pauses for just a beat, processing that, before he points an accusatory finger at Loki. "You're making fun of me."

The corners of Loki's mouth curve slightly upward. "Yes, a little."

"Okay, fair." He exhales. "So what are you planning to do?"

Loki shrugs. "I doubt I can convince you to sleep, but there's little point in your pushing forward if you are not at your best. I would merely give you a small boost of energy."

Oh, so sort of like a really big cup of coffee, except it's magic instead of caffeine. He thinks he's okay with that. "What're the side effects?"

"When you do sleep, you will sleep very soundly." Loki spreads his hands. "That is all."

That doesn't sound so bad, and fair is fair. He's planning to subject Loki to his crazy science, and Loki can't be super comfortable with that. The least he can do is let Loki do some crazy non-science to him so he can do his piece that much better. Still...

"You do this a lot?"

"I used to."

That's sort of an answer. "How does it work?"

"I'll show you." Loki lifts a hand, but he waits for Tony to nod before he reaches out and presses his fingertips against Tony's temple.

Tony shuts his eyes. Loki's fingers are cold against his skin, but after a second or two they warm up and Tony can feel something hot pulsing through them. He feels the difference in an instant, like a rubber band snapping inside his head, and he takes in a sharp breath. He knew he was probably tired before, but he was powering through and he was doing okay. Now, though... Now he feels alert, like he's just woken up from a week-long nap and downed fifty espressos in a row.

He doesn't realize Loki has withdrawn until the god clears his throat and asks, "Well?"

He opens his eyes. "Wow."

Loki smiles slightly. He even manages not to look like a smug asshole when he does. "I thought you might say that."

Everything looks crisper now, too. Is that normal? He likes it too much to ask. "That must come in handy."

"Now and then."

"Well, thanks." Tony stretches and gestures to a platform past him. "So how about you hop on and do the daVinci and then we'll get started?"

To his credit, Loki seems to understand the reference, because once he steps onto the platform and turns to face Tony, he arches an eyebrow and holds his arms out from his sides. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, that's all. Now just hold that position for, like, twenty minutes." He works some controls on the console. "I haven't synced this part up with FRIDAY yet, so I've got to do it manually. Should only take a second or two to start up."

Loki huffs, but when Tony looks up he's pretty sure the god looks less annoyed than he does amused, so he doesn't say anything about it.

"You might need to take off the armor," Tony remarks as the machine starts to spit out error messages. "What are they made of, anyway? They're totally messing with the sensors."

"Or perhaps the sensors are not working," Loki suggests. Regardless, he lowers his arms and strips off his leather duster, which he tosses onto a worktable. U and DUM-E immediately race over to it and start tugging on the ends, as though they're fighting over which robot has earned the honor of destroying Loki's belongings first.

"Guys, hey, no touching," Tony scolds. Both of the bots ignore him. No surprise there. He shakes his head and looks back at his screen. "Okay, yeah, that's a little better. Still getting a little interference, but I'm not going to make you take off your pants or anything so we'll just have to make do. And technically I just need your top half anyway, right? I know people joke about their brains being in their pants all the time, but..."

Loki doesn't look up from where he's stripping off bits of leather and metal. "It's no matter. This will only take a moment."

Tony watches him. Without all of the accoutrements, Loki is still a pretty sturdy guy, and although the contrast between him and Thor is obvious, he still looks like he could kill a guy if he wanted to. He's not all muscle, but he's lean and he's clearly in good shape. If he wasn't so full of crazy, he'd be pretty easy on the eyes. "Can't you just do that with magic?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Loki unbuckles a leather strap that doesn't seem to serve any purpose whatsoever. "My armor is enchanted. Removing it with magic would corrupt that spellwork."

"Oh. Neat." Tony pauses. "Does that just come standard on Asgard, or...?"

"I did it myself."

"Did you enchant Thor's armor, too?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Loki glances at him. "He did not ask me to," he says simply, although Tony gets the feeling there's a lot more to that than Loki is letting on.

He lets it go and looks down at his screen. "Well, maybe the magic is what was setting it off, then. Your little strip tease is clearing the interference right up."

"Good. Then we should be able to proceed."

Tony looks up. "Oh. You're done?"

Loki arches an eyebrow and pointedly looks down at what little he is still wearing—pretty much just his pants and a loose shirt. He's even taken off his shoes. "Yes."

Tony nods to his bare feet. "You put magic in your shoes?"

"Had you ever found yourself on the wrong end of a dwarven path trap, you would not be asking that question." Loki grimaces. "You need only experience that once to want to protect against it."

"Asgard has dwarves?" He waves a hand. "Don't answer that. You've got elves. Of course you've got dwarves. Stupid question. Hold your arms out, will you?"

Loki does so. "How does this work, precisely?"

"Don't talk." He changes a setting. "I'm basically whacking you with some imaging technology. Same stuff they put in CAT scans, MRIs, that sort of thing. Getting a good idea of what's going on inside you. Then FRIDAY will take that and put it through some 3D modeling and holoscreen it for me to manipulate. It's easy."

"A soul forge would probably be easier."

"One, I don't know what that is. Two, I told you not to talk. Stop talking." Tony finishes calibrating the scanner and settles back. "I'm working on developing it so it'll work outside the lab. Medical science alone will take a giant leap forward when I get it all sorted out. It's way less work than a full-body scan and it accomplishes about three times as much." He wiggles his fingers in the air. "Science."

"You're very strange."

"Didn't we talk about the talking? Quit it or you'll mess up the scanner." He taps his fingers against the console. "Shouldn't be much longer."

"Good."

"Quiet," he reminded him. He glances up from the console in time to see Loki rolls his eyes and he grins. "If you think this is bad, you should have seen the prototype. It was impossible to get the scanner aimed just right without help and it meant doing tons of partial scans until I got it just right. Took hours. This is nothing, trust me." He looks back at the console. "Okay, you're all set. You are now free to move about the cabin."

Loki steps off the platform. "And you have what you need?"

"Well, I'll need FRIDAY to mock it up and I still have to code it, and that could take a little while, so I won't know for absolute certain for another hour or two, but I think it's good enough. It would still be better if I had a control, though."

"That isn't possible." Loki straps on one of his gauntlets. "We need not discuss it further."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony scoops up his now cold Chinese food and shovels a bit into his mouth. He waves his chopsticks at Loki. "Do you just wear that stuff all the time? It can't be comfortable. You can relax, you know. It's not like anybody is going to come after us in the next few hours, right? We've got time."

Loki continues the arduous process of armoring himself. "It is better to be prepared."

"Yeah, sure, but come on. Even Thor lounges around, no armor required. You're safe here."

Loki glances his way, silent, and straps on what is probably a leather-covered chest plate. Asgardian armor is super weird.

When he doesn't get an answer, Tony frowns. "You don't think you're safe?"

Loki sighs. "Must you press?"

"Yes, because if you're not safe, I'm not safe. This is my house, remember? Who do you think is going to attack you here?" Tony waits for a response, but Loki opts to shove his feet into his boots instead of giving one. Tony frowns and stabs his chopsticks into the container. The silence is answer enough. "Is it me? Seriously? I just let you screw with my circadian rhythms and you don't trust me enough not to wear your armor around the house?"

Loki tugs on his leather duster. Tony can't help but notice how much less time it takes Loki to get his armor on than it does to get it off. It's seriously a little offensive.

"Do not take it personally," Loki says as he finishes the ordeal of dressing himself. "There are few people I trust enough for that."

"But we're partners."

"Yes."

"And you still feel like you have to wear your armor?"

Loki brushes at his sleeves. "I told you, it is merely a precaution."

"I don't wear my armor around you," Tony points out.

Loki arches an eyebrow at him. "Don't you?" he asks. He shakes his head before Tony can answer. "I assume you are done with me for now?"

"Yep. So done. You are free to go." He takes a seat and sulks at what remains of his dinner. He is super trustworthy, damn it. "You'll just be in the way anyway."

"Of course," Loki answers.

Tony fiddles with his chopsticks until Loki is up the stairs. Once Loki is gone, he sets everything aside and tilts his head back. "FRIDAY, give me a preliminary. Do Loki's insides more or less look the same as a regular person's insides?"

' _They seem mostly similar, sir._ '

'Mostly' is a little concerning, but he'll deal with that later. "Great. Model it out. Concentrate on the head, focus in on the brain. Give me as much detail as you can." It makes sense to start there, Tony figures. After all, the rock can't be called the Mind Stone for nothing. But, just in case... "Chest and nervous system next, all of it. Lay it out for me as you finish it, don't wait to do the whole thing. I want to see it system by system."

' _It will take some time to map out the brain, sir._ '

"Just do what you can." He stretches. "And turn up the music, will you? I don't know exactly what Loki did to keep me focused, but I'm taking advantage of it while I can. Let's get this party started."


	8. Chapter 8

' _Sir?_ '

Tony doesn't look up. He's elbow-deep in a holographic representation of Loki's nervous system—he didn't find anything abnormal in the brain, although he'll be the first to admit it's not his primary area of expertise—and he's pretty sure he'll forget where he is in it if he glances away even for a second. "What's up?"

' _Miss Potts is trying to call. Shall I put her through?_ '

Tony hesitates. He wants to say yes, but he is still trying to convince the world that he's a big, bad supervillain, and he warned Pepper they'd have to maintain radio silence for a while. On the other hand, he could use a sounding board, and the bots only go so far. Plus, it's Pepper. She may not always agree with him, but at least Tony knows she trusts him, and that counts for a lot right now. He somewhat reluctantly withdraws from the hologram and settles back.

"Sure, go ahead." He waits a beat until he's sure FRIDAY has patched Pepper in, and then he says, "Hey, Pep. How's things?"

"I can't believe you're going through with this."

"Do you miss me already? Don't worry. This'll be over before you know it."

Pepper sighs on the other end of the phone. "Are you okay, at least?"

"Of course I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm great. Better than ever." He takes a seat on the floor, right in the middle of Loki's nervous system. "How are you?"

"Stressed," she answers. "And it's your fault."

It usually is. He should probably feel worse about that than he does, but hey, Pepper knew what she was signing up for. "My fault?"

"First the attack on Baltimore, then the one in New York, and now you're challenging the Avengers on national television? Tony, do you have any idea how this is affecting your company?"

"Your company," Tony corrects. "Also, it was international television."

He thinks he hears Pepper breathe "Oh god," but it might just be his imagination. He hears her sigh loud and clear, however. "I know you're doing this for a good reason, so I'm not going to ask you to stop. But can you please be a little more self-aware? The board is talking about seizing your shares, Tony."

"The board?" It takes a moment for that to click. "The Stark Industries' board? They're trying to kick me off the board of my own company?"

"I thought it was my company."

"My company, your company, doesn't matter. They can't kick me off the board. I own, what, sixty-five percent of the shares?"

"Seventy even" Pepper says. "And yes, they can."

Tony drags his fingers through his hair. Great. Just great. This is not the pick-me-up he was hoping for. "Why? Because of this fake villain thing? That doesn't seem fair. They didn't so much as blink when I was making weapons and killing hundreds of people every day, but one little staged scuffle and they've decided they're done with me?"

"Tony, they don't know it was staged." Pepper sounds tired. "It's not just the board. They've decided you're a liability. They're talking about distancing the entire company from you."

"Well, tell them good luck with that. My name is plastered over everything, so..."

Pepper doesn't answer right away. "They're discussing taking your name off the brand entirely."

Ouch. That stung. "That's pretty harsh. You're fighting it, though, right?"

The silence on the other end of the phone is telling. Tony shuts his eyes.

"Pep?"

"I'm doing what I can," she answers. "But Tony... I hate to say this, but they might be right this time. Who knows how long this mission of yours is going to take? I'm CEO. I have to think about what's best for the company."

"But it's my company." And, he doesn't say, she's his girlfriend—or whatever the word they're not using is. Shouldn't she be on his side first, before the company's? He's calling foul. "Fight harder. This won't last too much longer. Things'll be back to normal before you know it."

"I hope so. I don't know how much more bad press the board is willing to put up with."

Tony shakes his head. "You keep Stark Industries afloat and don't let them sell out to anybody. I'll get things wrapped up here soon enough." He surveys his holographic replica of Loki's nervous system. 'Soon' might be a little optimistic, but... "Hey, while I've got you here, I have a question."

"It's not 'what are you wearing,' is it?"

"Of course not. You know the rules: no dirty talk where the bots might hear it." He sits back. "Let's say you're trying to control somebody. You know, get in their head. How do you do it?"

Pepper pauses. "Are you sure you want me to answer that?"

He wishes he could see her expression right about now. Was that a wary question or a teasing question? He can't tell over the phone. "Absolutely. Lay it on me."

"Don't take this the wrong way," she says, "but I would start with their heart."

Tony blinks. "That's incredibly unsettling, Pepper."

"You asked." She's quiet for a moment. "Does that help at all?"

"Creep factor aside?" He shrugs. "Maybe."

"Well, I guess that's the best I could hope for. Is that everything?"

"Just about." He smiles. "Well, one last thing. What _are_ you wearing?"

Pepper laughs. "Good luck with your project, Tony. Get it finished soon. And be careful."

"I always am," he answers, but he's pretty sure FRIDAY cuts the call off before he says it. He sighs and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "My own board is turning against me," he laments to no one in particular. "What a mess."

Tony climbs to his feet so that he's standing in Loki's nervous system. As predicted, he's totally lost his place. Oh well. He wasn't finding anything anyway. Not that he necessarily knows what to look for in the first place, but...

Really, Tony isn't even sure this mental link Loki feels he has with the Titan guy will show up on a physical scan, so this could all just be a waste of time. He has no idea. But he did promise Loki he would try, and this is him trying. And he's got to start somewhere, right?

"I guess I should just count myself lucky his anatomy is more or less the same as ours," Tony mutters to himself. "FRIDAY, do you have the heart all sewn up? Let's see if Pepper is on to something with her creepy theory."

The nervous system disappears and a holographic heart appears in its place, hovering an arm's length away from Tony's face. He reaches out and turns it to get a 360 view.

When he doesn't see anything on the outside, he shakes his head. "Open it up."

FRIDAY gives him a cross section and helpfully puts up a hologram of a regular human heart next to it so Tony can compare. He nods his approval.

"I really should have found an anatomist or a doctor or somebody who knows what they're doing to look at all this," he complains. "It all looks the same to me. FRIDAY, are you catching any anomalies on the scan?"

' _No sir_.'

"Yeah. Waste of time. Let's go back to the..." He stops and tilts his head. "Hold on. Is that something?" He reaches over with both hands to make the hologram larger. "FRIDAY?"

' _It appears to be a small mass of scar tissue, sir_.'

"You didn't think that was weird?" Tony's not sure he even knew hearts could develop scar tissue. Is that really a thing?

' _Scar tissue typically forms on the heart or an artery following some myocardial trauma, such as a heart attack or myocarditis. As Asgardians live a great deal longer and heal from injuries beyond what a human being might survive, this might merely be a species-derived anomaly.'_

"It could be, but we don't know that for sure." He shakes his head. "He heals fast, like you said, so we'll keep that in mind, but... Keep this up and put the image of his brain alongside it, will you?" He waits, then turns the image of the brain once it pops up. "Here. See? Another cluster of whatever that is. Scar tissue, I guess. It kind of looks the same, anyway." He didn't flag it earlier because it seemed so small, but coupled with the tissue on his heart... "Go through everything we've got on him, top to bottom. How many of these clusters are there?"

FRIDAY takes a little while to process before answering. ' _Forty-six, sir_.'

"Forty-six?" He whistles under his breath. It's probably not what he's looking for, but it's interesting anyway. How did Loki wind up with so much internal damage? "What's it mean?"

' _I would imagine it means Loki has suffered_ — _and recovered from_ — _extensive internal injuries, sir._ '

Tony shakes his head. "Not good enough. Are you keeping tabs on Loki? Get him down here."

It takes a while—almost half an hour, by Tony's watch—before Loki deigns to join him in the workspace, and he lingers by the door once he's there, as if he can't wait to get away. "Yes?"

"You've got forty-some scars in really weird places. Like, inside of you weird places. Want to tell me what that means?"

Loki raises his eyebrows. "It likely means I left an impressive dent in your floor during our encounter in New York," he says. "Surely you didn't think I came away from the battle completely unscathed."

"That's it?"

"Most likely." Loki considers him, head tilted to one side. "Since that seems to be your only concern, I take it the scan did not discover anything of note?"

Tony shakes his head. "I told you, it's next to impossible to figure out what's going on without having a control. That's just basic science."

"And I told you, that simply is not possible."

"Yeah, you've said that, but you haven't told me why." It doesn't look like Loki has any intention of answering, but Tony waves his hand to cut short any potential reply anyway. "It doesn't matter. Your anatomy isn't all that different from mine, and nothing interesting popped up except for all the leftovers from your near-death experience with the Hulk, so it's clearly nothing my scanner is going to pick up."

Loki's expression looks almost disappointed for a fraction of a second, but that might just be Tony's imagination. "I see. Then there is no hope of breaking the connection."

"Unless I can figure out exactly what he did to you, I don't know if there is. Maybe if I got you in the scanner during one of your little episodes I could trace some neural pattern or..." He stops. "Oh. Was it really that obvious? Fuck I'm brilliant. I'm so brilliant I don't even know when I'm being brilliant until after I've finished brilliant-ing."

Loki frowns. "Do feel free to enlighten me at any time."

He points at Loki. "You. You're your own control. Of course I'm not going to pick anything up when I scan you right now, because nothing is happening right now. You're totally normal. I mean, normal for you. Whatever that entails. The change happens when the bad guy tries to get in your head, and whatever he's using to do that isn't going to show up in a scan until he actually tries to access it."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I need to get you in the scanner while he's trying to break in." He offers up a grin. "Easy. Shouldn't be that hard. I'll just need you to stick around the lab so I start scanning you the second you start to go all crazy-eyed."

"That won't be possible."

"Oh, come on!" Tony throws up his hands. "Are you serious right now? Is this a trust thing again? I am getting really sick of everybody's trust issues. My board's, Pepper's, yours... I'm not going to sic my bots on you or anything. Fuck, give me ten minutes and I'll probably forget you're even here. That's sort of my thing. I'm forgetful and I get caught up in my work. You're perfectly safe down here, all right? Just get that through your head for a second."

Loki frowns at him. "It's not that, Stark."

"Then what is it?"

"I've work of my own to do."

"Like what? Unless it's talking to your alien buddies, I don't see why you can't do whatever it is you have to do down here just as easy as you could upstairs."

Loki shakes his head and starts to turn away, back toward the stairs. "No, Stark."

"Do you want this fixed or not?"

"Of course I do."

"Then stick around and let me try fixing it." He waits for Loki to answer and, when he doesn't, he snaps his fingers to get the god's attention. "Give me your coat."

Loki looks back at him. "What?"

"Your coat. Give it to me. I want to try it on."

Loki stares at him for a few seconds before he very pointedly looks Tony up and down. "I don't think it will fit you."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm short. You're very funny." He makes grabby hands in Loki's direction. "Let me try on your magic coat."

"Why?"

"I've got reasons." They're stupid reasons, and he'll be the first to admit to that, but they're still reasons. "Coat. Gimme."

Loki shakes his head, but he backtracks across the room and undoes and removes the gauntlets at his forearms so that he can take off his shoulder guard and shrug off his duster. "You are very strange."

"Yeah, you've said that before." He holds his arms behind his back so that Loki can put the coat on him, and Loki does, although he doesn't even try to hide his eye roll. Once it's on, Loki steps back and Tony rolls his shoulders.

The coat is definitely way too big on Tony. The shoulders are too wide, the sleeves are too long, and the coat itself sweeps the floor around his feet. Also, it's heavier than Tony expected, and he has to brace himself just to stand up straight in it. Regardless, he pushes the sleeves up as best he can and nods.

"All right, great. Now, I'm going to go back to work, and since you don't feel comfortable without your magic coat, you can't leave until I decide I'm done wearing it." He waves Loki toward a stool. "You can just sit there for a while. I'll let you know when I'm done."

Loki seems to get over his surprise relatively quickly, and Tony thinks he sees him bite back the start of a smile. "Ah," he says. "You think you've tricked me."

"I've totally tricked you. Now go sit down."

Loki shakes his head as he goes over to the stool Tony indicated. "You are impeding my work."

"Same to you." The sleeves of Loki's coat fall down and Tony pushes them back up. "Don't worry. All you need to do is hang out until I can get a good scan of you while you're having one of your moments. You're averaging, what, one or two a day? We shouldn't have to wait long."

"We'll see." Loki drags down a holoscreen—one with notes and stuff already scribbled on it, all written in a language Tony doesn't recognize—and stretches out his legs, getting comfortable. After a moment, he notices Tony watching him and he arches an eyebrow. "What now?"

"I'm waiting for you to have one of your episodes."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Find something else to do. You are disturbing me."

"As in I'm keeping you from working or as in I'm just generally putting you off?"

"Both."

"Deal with it." He—after a few tries because Loki's coat is really goddamn heavy—hops up to sit on the worktable. "It's not like I can put a bell on you and know when something is triggering that connection or like you can let me know in advance, so I've got to pay attention."

"You do have your FRIDAY," Loki points out.

Tony glances toward the closets of FRIDAY's sensors. "Yeah, and no offense to her, but she's missed a few crucial things over the past few days. We're planning a debugging session once everything settles down. Just to be safe." Plus, he doesn't know if Vision is planning to hack into FRIDAY's interface again, and he doesn't want Vision to accidentally stumble across that alert setting. Loki wants him to keep the Avengers in the dark, so he's going to keep to his word as best he can, and that means limiting Vision's access—and therefore FRIDAY's involvement—in all of this.

"So you intend to stare at me instead?" Loki shakes his head. "Surely that isn't necessary."

"Well, unless you've got a better idea, it kind of is." Tony kicks his heels against the side of the table. "Want to tell me what you're working on, or should I just..."

He trails off as he sees Loki go very still and quiet, and then he all but leaps off the table in Loki's direction.

"You've got to be shitting me. Already? That was fast." He tries to pull Loki to his feet, but the guy is heavier than he looks and doesn't budge. He gestures to his bots. "Guys, come on, give me a hand."

The bots whirr and beep their concern, but they don't make a move to come any closer.

Tony swears. "Come on, don't tell me you're scared of him." He slides his arms under Loki's and tries to bodily haul him off the stool, but all that does is make the stool tilt precariously to one side. Tony immediately puts Loki back where he was before he knocks the god to the floor. Loki probably wouldn't appreciate the bruises, however temporary they might be, and Tony isn't sure how aware Loki is while he's in this trance thing. Would the fall break his concentration? If so, would the Titan could break into Loki's head while Loki was distracted?

There are way more variables here than Tony prepared for, and he definitely didn't count on Loki being so incredibly heavy. Maybe this is a less brilliant idea than he thought.

"Shit." He tugs at Loki's clothes as though that will accomplish anything. "Come on, I need to get you in the scanner before this wears off. Get up."

Loki doesn't react at all, and finally, Tony gives up and crouches down in front of Loki to wait for his episode to be over.

It takes almost a whole five minutes before Loki shakes himself back to awareness. When he does, he looks down at where Tony is sitting on the floor and arches his eyebrows.

Tony shakes his head. "I couldn't get you to the scanner."

Loki exhales. It's not quite a sigh, but it's close. "I see. Then this was for naught."

"You could just sit in the scanner until the next one hits," Tony suggests. "That way I won't have to try and move you."

"That would also require me to not wear my armor, I expect."

"I forgot about that." Tony drags his fingers through his hair. "Yes. It probably would. And you're not comfortable with that. Got it. Bad idea. I just don't know what else to do right now."

Loki considers him, quiet, and then he shakes his head. "Perhaps it will come to you if you stop thinking about it for a time," he suggests. "I will allow you to help with my plans instead."

Tony doesn't move from his spot on the floor. "What are your plans?"

"Another attack. What city would make for an ideal target, do you think? Some place that is well defended but requires additional reinforcement would be best."

"I don't know. I mean, I guess maybe some place in the Middle East, if we're going for something international, but..." He trails off. "Wait, another attack? On Earth?"

Loki has pulled up a map of the Middle East and is considering it with some skepticism. "Yes, of course. Where else?"

"You can't attack Earth."

He glances at him. "I already have, Stark. Twice. I assure you I can, and I will. Or have you forgotten what it is I've set out to do here?"

Tony shakes his head. "I haven't forgotten. But come on, they just had to deal with you, what, this morning?"

"Yesterday," Loki corrects. "You have been working down here for some time."

"Still, it's been a day. Give them a chance to recover."

"The Titan will not allow them that reprieve when he comes. Why should I?"

"Uh, because you're not him?" Tony climbs to his feet, leaving Loki's duster behind on the floor. "Come on. I know you're trying to do a good thing here, but he's not coming that fast, is he? Give everyone here a break. A couple days, at least."

Loki shakes his head. "No, Stark. To take on the Titan, they will need to muster all their endurance as well as their strength, or they will fall within days."

"I don't like it."

"I do not require your approval." Loki dismisses the holoscreens. "If you are so opposed, you need not stand with me. Return to your team. There is nothing here compelling you to help further my cause."

"This is my house," he reminds Loki. "And no way. We made a deal. I help you, you help me. Remember?"

"And that is your decision?"

"I guess it is."

"Then name the city, Stark." Loki stands, picks up his duster from the floor, and drapes it over the seat of his stool before he sits back down. "I care not where it is, only that it is moderately defensible."

"Stuttgart. You've been there before, so they won't be totally shocked to see you there again. And it's sort of the heart of Europe—that's what they're telling people, anyway—so it'd make sense for you to go after it."

Loki furrows his brow. "I don't recall any real defenses there."

"Yeah, can't speak to that. I know there's a military presence, though. Our guys, at least. And it's been around for ages, lasted through a few wars... That means it's got to be pretty sturdy, since most of the buildings there have been around since forever. Hey, what if I made the scanner portable? That might work."

"The armor will still pose a problem."

Tony waves a hand dismissively. "I'll figure out a way around it. First things first. Portable scanner. This is going to be a thing. Stuttgart is good for your thing?"

"It will do."

"Okay. Good. I'm going to make a portable version of the scanner, then."

Loki offers him a faint smile. "You do that. Should I let you know when I leave for Stuttgart?"

"Well, yeah, of course. I mean, you've got to take me with you, so..."

"You wish to join in the fight? Against your friends?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Tony is only half paying attention as he pulls down holoscreens and notes to start simplifying and compacting his scanner into something a little more mobile. "Well, see, it occurred to me that this guy was able to control you to a point, and you were able to kind of control Clint and some other people, and sure, he doesn't have the Mind Stone anymore, but that's not to say the people down here won't have to be prepared to fight people they care about, right? Because anything could happen."

Loki blinks at him. "I had not considered that," he admits, and then he nods. "Very well. I will take you with me to Stuttgart."

"With my suit."

"Of course."

Tony nods. "Well, you just let me know when. I'll be here, miniaturizing super high-tech, advanced, delicate machinery so that I can use it on you and save the world. You know. Same old, same old."

Loki pulls down a new holoscreen. "Naturally. Don't let me stop you."

He pauses. "You're going to do your thing down here, too?"

"Unless I will be in your way...?"

He won't be, but Tony isn't exactly used to working with an audience. He hasn't done it in a long time. Then again, maybe that extra bit of pressure will be good for him. He works well under pressure, usually. Why should this be any different?

"No, you're fine," he decides, and drags some notes from one holoscreen to another. "But you'll have to put up with my soundtrack."

Loki makes an amused noise. "I'm sure I'll make do."

"Good." Tony nods his head. "FRIDAY, hit it."


	9. Chapter 9

Around the same time Tony moves from writing down notes to actually assembling his prototype scanner, Loki dismisses his own holoscreens and stands up, tugging on his duster.

"It's time."

Tony looks up. "Time for what? Stuttgart? Already?"

"Yes."

Tony glances over the pieces of machinery and wiring he's laid out on the tabletop and tries to memorize exactly what it is he intends to do with every single one of them, just in case he forgets before he comes back, and then he nods. "Just let me get my suit on."

Loki watches him. "You are sure you're up for this?"

"Sure, why not?" He spreads his arms and bits and pieces of his suit come flying at him, assembling themselves around him. "How hard can it be?"

"Fighting against your friends and knowing they will never fully understand why?" Loki muses. "I imagine it will be very hard indeed."

"Well, you just let me be the judge of that." His visor flips down to cover his face and FRIDAY boots up his sensors and arrays. "I'm ready."

Loki nods and holds out his arm. The moment Tony puts his hand on him, Loki transports them away.

The trip this time is a little less traumatic in that Tony doesn't immediately feel like vomiting in his suit, but it's still disorienting and makes his head spin. He stumbles when they finally arrive in Stuttgart and he doubles over, putting his hands on his legs to keep from falling.

Loki waits until he's recovered and is standing upright before he says anything. "Ready?"

"Wait, hold up, what's the plan? Are we just shooting things and waiting for the Avengers to show up? Is that what we're doing here?" Tony does the mental math. "It could take them hours to get here. How many people are we—"

"I sent someone ahead," Loki interrupts. "I'm sure the Avengers are on their way."

Tony frowns. "You sent them ahead to do what?"

Loki waves a dismissive hand as his armor—the formal stuff with the cape and the helmet and all—sort of appears around him. "Create minor disturbances, mostly. This associate looks different enough that she will cause quite a stir with merely her presence, I assure you."

"So you basically just sent someone to walk around and freak people out?" Tony smiles behind his visor. He's not sure he wants to admit it, but it's kind of brilliant, and it definitely eliminates some of the muss and fuss. "I like it."

Loki shrugs. "I thought you might approve. It's a temporary measure, naturally. Your team will need to adapt to respond to a threat at a moments' notice, but we'll get there. And, in the meantime, we must make them believe we are worthy of their attention." He considers the buildings around them and nods to one. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Tony glances at the building and runs his bioscans. He looks back at Loki. "There are people in there."

"Then I recommend you aim carefully."

All right, so that's less awesome, and he's definitely still not Loki's biggest fan, despite his brilliant idea with the alien. Still, he's come all this way...

Tony shakes his head and raises his arm, aiming high, toward the top floor. Everyone seems to be on the bottom two levels, so if he just blasts the top floor, there will be a little rubble, some general panic... Not so bad. Right?

He exhales. "Here goes nothing," he says, and fires.

He has good aim. Well, of course he has good aim. He has super advanced targeting systems to make sure he has good aim. He hits a top corner of the building and watches, satisfied, as the top floor crumbles and collapses in on itself. People scream inside, but it's only moments before they're rushing out the front door and, as he hoped, they all seem okay.

Tony lets out a breath and looks back at Loki. "How's that for non-lethal villainy?"

Loki's lips quirk slightly—the start of a smile, Tony thinks, but he can't quite tell. "It will do."

Tony interprets that to mean 'five out of five, would villain again,' and he nods his head. "All right. What next?"

"We should—"

The whistle is the only warning they get, and then Thor's hammer hits Loki in the middle of his chest and sends him flying backward, into the building Tony just managed not to demolish.

Tony looks up to see the Avengers' jet coming into view, and as its shields drop, there's a quick burst of static in his ear and then... Then he can hear everything they're saying on the comms. Which makes sense, of course—why would they change the frequency or take him off the link? He's on their side. Sort of.

Thor lands hard on the street and Mjolnir comes flying back to him. "Loki!"

Tony glances back. Loki is picking himself up, slowly, and he's leaving behind a Loki-shaped dent in the stone wall. He has to say he's a little impressed; he knows Asgardians are tough, but he's been on the wrong end of that hammer before. Loki is definitely going to feel it later.

Loki gets to his feet and dusts himself off. "Ah, Thor. It's good to see you as well."

Thor shifts his grip on his hammer. "End this game now, brother."

Through the comms, Tony can hear Cap getting everyone into position, telling them the battle plan. It's the same basic plan as it always is, by the sound of it. Clint gets up high, Natasha stays on the ground with Steve to find and subdue the alien Loki sent ahead, and Thor engages Loki directly. Same old, same old.

Thor's focus is entirely on Loki, who can probably handle himself just fine without Tony's help, so Tony takes advantage of the opportunity to fire up his thrusters and take to the air. He heads up first, just to get a better vantage point, and then dives down, swooping to intercept Captain America and Black Widow before they can make it to Loki's alien friend.

Finding the alien friend doesn't take too long—Tony really just has to follow the shouting—and once he's in the air above the panicking people, it takes less than a second to figure out which one is Loki's alien. Seeing as she's probably about seven feet tall and made of fire, well, she sort of stands out.

Tony stays in the air a moment to get his bearings. The fire seems pretty contained to the alien herself; she's not leaving fiery footsteps in her wake or anything, and she seems to be purposefully avoiding anything that looks combustible. Definitely no problem there. Loki was right in saying she'd just cause a commotion, at least. That's something.

Tony lands and immediately puts his hands up so the fire giant won't think he's a threat. "Hey, hi, I'm on your side. Do you speak English by any chance? At all? Maybe?" He doesn't get a response, which isn't shocking, and the fire alien gets into what Tony knows from years of boxing with Happy is a fighting stance, so he keeps going. "I'm with Loki. Loki? You know. Tall, wears lots of leather? Busted you out of Asgard jail?"

Static spits in his ear and his comm comes to life again as Clint says, "Cap, Tony is over by the museum hanging out with the hostile. Might want to reconsider your battle plan so he doesn't accidentally fall into line of fire."

Tony wrinkles his nose. Now that's just insulting. He's supposed to be the bad guy here, sure, but he's not exactly a Scooby Doo villain—he can hold his own. Surely they haven't forgotten that so quickly.

"Roger," Steve answers.

Tony shakes his head. "Forget this," he decides, and—well aware the fire alien is still watching him and trying decide what to make of him—he fires at Steve and Natasha as soon as he sees them rounding the corner on Steve's insanely retro motorcycle. His shot hits the pavement in front of them so that the bike takes a nosedive into the resulting pothole and both Steve and Natasha have to jump to avoid winding up with major road rash, and then, satisfied he's sufficiently proven himself a hostile, he turns back to the alien.

"Get it now?"

He gets a flash of sharp looking teeth in return—what he hopes is a smile—and then, before he knows what's happening, all hell breaks loose. He's not sure who strikes first—well, second, actually, because technically he shot first—but in one moment everything is sort of okay and in the next, the fire alien and Captain America are duking it out in the middle of the street, and things are getting messy.

It occurs to Tony about then that he's not totally sure what Loki's escape plan is, or if there even is an escape plan. There's probably an escape plan, he's mostly sure, because Loki keeps saying he wants to prepare the Avengers little by little and it'd be awfully hard to do that behind bars, but things are on fire and there is debris everywhere and Tony has no idea if there is an escape plan or if Loki is making this up as he goes along. Either way, what's stopping him from bailing and leaving Tony and his new alien friend to duke it out with the Avengers?

He fires a shot somewhere in front of Natasha to keep her from helping Steve gang up on the fire alien and opens his comm link direct to Clint. "Hey, bird brain, give me eyes on Loki. He and Thor still having a tiff?"

There is the briefest of hesitations before Clint answers. "Hostiles aren't supposed to use the comms, you know."

"Change the frequency so I can't hear everything you guys are saying and I'll consider not tapping into it. Work with me here. Loki. He's still got his hands full with Thor?"

"Not for much longer."

Okay, so that probably means either Loki is getting his ass thoroughly handed to him or has turned the fight into a big game of tag. "Want to be a little more specific?"

"Wanda's about to get involved."

Well, that's new. "She's just a recruit. Steve called her up already?"

Clint scoffs. "Come on, she took on Ultron with the rest of us. You really think she's going to hang back and keep from getting her hands dirty after that? She's on the ground and eager to show her stuff."

Tony fires a repulsor at Steve, who deflects it with his shield, and he shivers inside his suit, remembering his own experience with Wanda's so-called 'stuff'—his own personal nightmare brought to the forefront of his brain, where he can't escape it or will it away. He's not sure what Steve and Natasha have trained Wanda to do, but if turning someone's own mind against them is still in the books, he's pretty sure her being around Loki will be bad, bad news. And maybe it won't work on him, sure, but Loki's not likely to take the effort kindly.

And what if Wanda puts the whammy on Loki and it _does_ work? Tony remembers some of the more gruesome details of the myths FRIDAY dug up for him, and if even half of those are true, he's pretty sure Loki has considerably more nightmare fuel rolling around in his head than Wanda will know what to do with. Loki seems more mentally stable than the last time he and Tony ran into one another, but if Wanda puts cracks in that veneer, well... Who knows what could happen?

"Is she on comm?"

"Nah. Says it bothers her, having it in her ear."

Of course it does, and that means there's no way to tell her to disengage. Tony swears to himself and then jets back into the air, away from the fight. Tony is mostly sure Steve and the alien are too involved to notice his sudden departure, but Natasha watches him go and shields her eyes to track his direction. He feints east just to throw her off, then soars back toward where he left Thor and Loki once he's out of sight.

Tony runs a quick scan as he approaches and yep, there she is, Wanda Maximoff, lurking in the shadows not too far from where Loki and Thor are duking it out. It's hard to tell what she's doing from where he is, but Tony's sensors are going crazy, and he's pretty sure that means something weird is going on. And, given the circumstances, that something is probably aimed Loki's way.

Well, they can't have that.

Tony times his descent so that he lands while Mjolnir is in the air and on a path toward Loki—just to make sure there's no risk of Thor deciding to aim his way before he can get both feet on the ground—and puts himself between Wanda and Loki. He picks a gleam of red out of the shadows, fires up his repulsor, and aims it straight at her.

"Don't even think about it, pipsqueak."

The red fades but doesn't go away completely, and Tony keeps aiming for it, trying to prove to Wanda that he means business.

"You don't want to do what you think you want to do," he warns. "It won't end well for anybody."

As he watches, the gleam of red dies away, and Tony lets out a breath. "Good call," he says. Behind him, a building comes down as Thor and Loki ram into it, and the rubble crashes around them. "Trust me, you're better off not getting in their way."

"You must be nuts," Clint says in his ear.

"What, because I'm standing next to two dueling demigods? Yeah, I'm something," Tony concedes. "But hey, we should really get those two counseling or something. This little family tiff is getting out of hand."

"No, not that," Clint says. "I mean you're nuts if you think she's actually listening to you."

"What? She just turned off the hoodoo, so of course..." He trails off and does a quick scan. No Wanda. No anybody, actually. "Damn it."

Clint sounds a little smug when he replies. "Told you."

"Will you change your frequency already? I'm the bad guy, remember?" To prove it, he fires a blast in the general direction of the rooftop where Clint has parked himself. It misses by a mile, but judging by Clint's yelp, it came close enough to startle him, and that makes Tony feel a little bit better.

"Dick!" Clint fires off before he turns off the comm signal and the radio link goes silent.

About time. Tony exhales and takes a look around. "FRIDAY, any sign of her?"

' _No, sir_.'

"Keep looking." She can't have gotten far, and Thor and Loki are still doing their thing, so there's no way she's gotten close enough to mess with anything—yet. Tony wants to believe she's decided to abort her mission entirely, but he knows better; Wanda is a stubborn little witch, and she's going to see this through, in spite of Tony's threats. Which isn't a shock; she's got to know he's not actually going to attack her. They're on the same side.

Well, sort of. And, now that he thinks of it like that, maybe he's been going about this the wrong way. He's been trying to avoid doing any real damage and he's been keeping his old teammates at arms' length—fighting them without really engaging any of them—because down deep, he still wants to be the hero. But the thing is, he's already come out to the world as a bad guy—as a supervillain, no less, and he's tied his cart to Loki, who is, as far as the majority of Earth is concerned, the baddest of the bad.

Maybe it's time to stop holding back. He'll regret it later, maybe, and when he does finally get this Loki situation resolved, Stark Industries' public relations department will have its work cut out for it, but why should he worry about the future? That's future Tony's problem. Right now, he's got to figure out a quick and easy way to give himself and Loki an advantage over the Avengers, ideally before Wanda can get her hands on either of them, and that means he has to start thinking big.

Supervillain big.

It's easier than Tony would like. He takes a look around, trying to figure out where Wanda might have disappeared to, and then fires missiles at all the surrounding buildings, taking them down. He feels a pang of guilt when he does—he knows full well that a Stark missile took out Wanda's family once upon a time, and this might be striking some similar chords—but he ignores it and continues lashing out, taking any potential hiding places out of the picture, all to force the Scarlet Witch out of hiding. He runs infrared to make sure she isn't actually in any of the places he demolishes—he doesn't worry about bystanders, since they've long-since evacuated—but otherwise takes down building after building, turning them to rubble without prejudice or care.

It feels good—almost cathartic. Is it supposed to feel that good?

Okay, that settles it; when this is all over, he's investing in a really good therapist. He's clearly harboring some issues.

When the dust settles, there's only one building still standing, and Tony confirms his suspicions with a quick infrared scan before he steps toward it.

"Ready or not," he says, "here I come."


	10. Chapter 10

Later, once he and Loki are back in Malibu and after Tony has started to piece together his portable scanner, Tony turns on the news and tells himself the media is making it all look worse than it actually was. He tells himself that it's more newsworthy if they play up the destruction and chaos he and Loki caused in Stuttgart. That it's good for ratings if they make him out to be the bad guy. None of that makes it true.

The footage is pretty convincing, though, and when Tony watches himself toss Wanda down a stretch of street as though she's a piece of litter, well... It's kind of hard to see that and feel good about it. He had to do it, he knows that—she was close, too close, to getting to Loki, and he had to stop her—but that doesn't exactly make it any better.

The news anchors don't think so, either, and when they start showing clips from their "man on the street" interviews, it's clear the general public is against him, too.

Not that he blames them.

Despite all that, Tony stays sitting on his barely used couch with the scanner components on the coffee table in front of him. He moved his work upstairs for the change of scenery, and because if he stayed in his workshop he'd be tempted to work on his suit instead of on the scanner, and he only turned on the television so that he could have background noise. It's tempting to go work downstairs after all, or at least to turn off the television so that he feels less bad about himself, but he can't bring himself to do it.

The people are putting him on trial, and they've already made him out to be guilty. He should at least see how long they tease out the deliberations before they sentence him.

FRIDAY lets him know—twice—that Pepper is trying to reach him, and he finally mutes his AI so that he doesn't have to feel bad about ignoring her calls. He's got enough to feel bad about already.

The worst part, Tony decides as he watches yet another clip of himself taking out a row of buildings, is that he can't help but remember how _good_ it felt. After so many years of reigning in his self-destructive tendencies—and okay, it's only been, like, five years of it, but that's a lot for him—it felt really good to take it out on something else. Someone else, in Wanda's case. That said, it's probably not a healthy outlet, especially seeing as it's apparently causing him even more trouble after the fact. Bit counterproductive.

Still, when it was actually happening, while he was caught in the moment... It was something else entirely. It was...

The memory gets lost as Tony watches himself shoot a unibeam at Thor's back, slamming the big guy face first into a brick wall, so that he and Loki can take the opportunity to disappear into thin air. And yeah, the baffled look on Thor's face when he picks himself up is internet meme–worthy (and how did they even get this footage, anyway? It's amazing), but it doesn't change the fact that he, Tony Stark, shot a guy in the back just to get out of a fight. It's low, even for him, and the news anchors agree.

That settles it. He's almost definitely a terrible human being.

Tony is so caught up in the news footage that he doesn't notice Loki until the god takes a seat beside him and holds out a glass. Tony takes it without looking and uses it to gesture at the television.

"They hate me," he says.

Loki considers the news report a moment before he answers. "Yes," he agrees. "It certainly does appear that way."

Tony sighs and leans back into the couch cushions. "It shouldn't bother me. We're doing a good thing here, you and me."

"It shouldn't bother you, but it does." Loki shrugs. "That's natural. Regardless of the validity or unimportance of opinion, we are usually wounded when it turns against us."

"In other words?"

"We care about what other people think despite knowing we should not."

Tony nods. That makes sense. "It sucks."

"Yes."

Tony takes a drink. Scotch—the good stuff. Loki's been paying attention. "How do you do it?"

Loki tilts his head to one side. "How do I do what?"

"You know. You don't care what other people think about you. How do you do it?"

Loki makes an extremely undignified noise—something like a snort—and sits back, crossing his legs at the knee. "Whatever gave you that impression?"

"Come on, with all the shit you pull? Not just with New York or New Mexico. I've heard stories." Myths, really, and he has no idea how many of them might be true, but assuming even some of them are...

Loki shakes his head. "You're mistaken, Stark. My being accustomed to others' low expectations is not the same as not caring about them."

"How do you mean?"

"That's something of a different conversation."

"That’s okay. I think I get it." He swirls the scotch in his glass. "You care so much about what people think that you make them think the worst of you on purpose so that you can't ever disappoint them." He glances at Loki. "Right?"

Loki doesn't say anything, but Tony thinks he knows the answer. He's never gone quite so far as Loki, but he's definitely intentionally trashed his own reputation before. After his parents died, he started going to wild parties and coming home—or not, sometimes—blackout drunk. He didn't bother trying to keep it quiet. He didn't care if what he did was sometimes a little bit illegal. It didn't matter. He wanted everyone's expectations of him to be low. That way, when he did decide to start taking his legacy as Howard Stark's son seriously, he wouldn't risk letting anybody down.

Of course, he ruined all of it when he surpassed the legacy. When he became Iron Man. And maybe that's his problem. Maybe he's let the world expect too much of him. Still, why should he feel bad that he's not living up to those expectations? It's not his fault he's not perfect all the time—fame, fortune, and brilliant intellect aside, he's just a guy. Sometimes he does good things. Sometimes he does not-so-good things. Sometimes he does things he knows are good but that seem really bad. Nobody's perfect. The world should really just cut him some slack.

"I care about what people think, too," Tony says, just because he feels like it needs to be said. "I mean, I'm not going to try and take over a planet because of it, but I care."

"Hm." Loki exhales. "If you would rather forget this enterprise and return to your team, I will not hold it against you."

It takes a moment for Loki's offer to register, and when it does, it's like a punch to the gut. "Hold up. You think I'm going to back out of our deal?"

"I am saying only that I would not blame you if you chose to, Stark. That is all."

"Screw you. I don't care about what people think enough for that, either. I made a promise and I'm keeping it. You're stuck with me until I figure out how to fix whatever it is that's going on in that twisted brain of yours, you hear me? Stuck."

Loki watches him. "It may be a pointless endeavor, you realize."

"Now you're just being defeatist." He takes another drink and silently appreciates that Loki poured him a little more than his usual two fingers. He can use a little liquid reinforcement right about now. "I'm Tony Stark. I've never come across a problem I can't solve. I once cured myself of dying, you know. True story. I invented an element."

"I'm sure that's very fascinating."

Tony ignores him. "And besides, it's you and me against the universe right now, and it's an awfully big universe. We've got to stick together."

Loki offers him a hint of a smile. "You may regret that."

"I'll live with it." And that, that's kind of the point, isn't it? He's working toward something bigger and arguably more important than his ego or his reputation. He's out there trying to save the world, in a weird, roundabout kind of way, and it shouldn't matter that everyone hates him for it right now. He shouldn't care. He does, a little, sure, but this... This is more important.

Loki watches him like he's looking for something, and when Tony glances his way he only arches an eyebrow. "I take it you are in slightly better spirits?"

"I... Yeah, actually. Did you put something in my drink?"

"No."

"Good." He drinks some more. "So, yeah. Thanks for this. I think it helped."

"I hardly did anything."

"Bullshit. I'm beginning to think you're able to read my mind or something. Or you're just really, really good at making my train of thought run on your tracks. You got me from Point A to Point... I don't know, X. Somehow."

Loki shrugs. "I merely listened."

"Well, it helped. So thanks."

"Of course." He starts to get up, and that's when Tony notices what he's wearing: Leather pants still, and his tunic shirt, but that's it. No jacket. No gauntlets. Nothing.

He looks up at him. "You're not wearing your armor."

Loki pauses. "No," he agrees. "I am not."

"Why not?"

"I did not feel it was necessary." Loki is silent for a beat. "And it hardly seemed appropriate to approach you when your own defenses were down."

"I never wear my armor around the house."

"I am not referring to your suit, Stark."

"Oh." Tony glances at the television, then back at Loki. "You busy?"

"Not particularly."

"Then stick around. Watch some TV with me." He picks up the remote. "Fun stuff only. No talking heads. Promise."

Loki doesn't answer, and for a moment Tony thinks he's trying to come up with a witty way of refusing him, but then, finally, Loki sits back down. "Very well. If you insist."

"I do insist." He starts flipping channels. "What do you like? Action, drama, romance, porn, mysteries?"

"I hardly know."

"What, you don't have TV on Asgard?" He shakes his head. "You poor man. You don't even know how deprived you are."

"Stark, I've seen things you could only dream of."

"You'd be surprised. I mean, I've got pretty big dreams to begin with, and then I've got television to help fill in the blanks, so I'm guessing we're on pretty even ground." He pauses on a foreign film, just to see if he can figure out what language it is, and then he remembers something and glances at Loki.

"What language do you speak?"

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"You. What language do you speak? It's not English."

"No."

"But I understand you fine."

"That's somewhat debatable." Loki shakes his head. "It's All Speak. It allows me to understand and be understood in almost any language."

"Handy." Tony is quiet for about thirty seconds, watching the movie. "So you understand all of this, then."

"Don't you?"

Tony changes the channel instead of answering. Loki chuckles; he ignores him.

It's strange, in a way. Maybe spending so much time bunking with the other Avengers while they hunted down what was left of Hydra has made him accustomed to having people constantly around, or maybe he's just gone totally nuts, but sitting with Loki seems almost natural. He's only really known the guy for a day or so—he's not sure the hours before Loki admitted his actual master plan really count—but he's totally comfortable sitting with him and watching movies. It's even kind of relaxing. It's nice.

So, naturally, he has to try and ruin it.

"Did you really have sex with a horse?"

Loki doesn't even blink. "You've been reading up on me."

"Is that a yes?"

"It is not."

"So it's a no?"

"It's rather more complicated than that." Loki gives him a sideways look. "Did you truly accept a prestigious award while nude?"

Tony laughs. He's not the only one whose been doing his homework. "It was an honorary doctorate. But yeah, you bet I did. There's video, if you want proof."

"You are shameless," Loki says, and Tony has probably had people tell him that a billion times, but when Loki says it, he doesn't make it sound judge-y. He makes it sound like a challenge. Like he wants Tony to show him just how true the label is.

Tony loves a good challenge.

"Tell me the horse story and I'll do my next press conference naked, too," he offers. He's a little thrilled when he sees Loki trying to hide a grin, and he raises the stakes a bit more. "Without a podium. Full monty."

Loki presses his hand to his chest in mock horror. "So vulgar," he says in a way Tony thinks means 'you should absolutely do that.' "However will we survive such a scandal?"

Tony laughs and finishes his drink. He's feeling better already. "Whatever, Prancer. So, you fucked a horse. And...?"

Loki tilts his head to one side as though he's considering correcting him and setting the record straight, and then he shrugs. "I suppose that's close enough."

"What, no story?"

"Some other time, I think." He reaches over and takes the remote from Tony. He examines it for a while before he points it at the television and presses a few buttons. He nods, satisfied, when he finds the right one and the channel changes, and then he keeps going. "This is somewhat entertaining."

"That's not how..." He trails off and settles back to watch Loki flip through channels instead. It's not exactly what he meant when he suggested Loki stay to watch TV with him, but so what? Loki seems pleased just to have figured out the remote, and Tony wasn't in the mood for anything specific anyway. This is definitely better. "You just let me know when you get bored of that," he says, and he exchanges his scotch for the scanner components he left scattered on the coffee table.

Loki looks away from the television long enough to consider him. "You truly intend to keep your end of the bargain, then?"

"I told you I would." He looks around for a screwdriver, fails to find one, and settles for taking out his wallet and using the corner of his credit card instead. "Besides, if I don't keep my end, there's no way of knowing if you'll keep your end, and your end is pretty important. I mean, do we really have a shot against this guy if you're not on our side?"

"Is that intended as derision or flattery, Stark?"

Tony glances at him. "It was a legitimate question. You're the only person here who's ever had any contact with this guy, and you don't seem to think the Avengers can take him as they are. Even if you do get them up to snuff in time, it's going to be all hands on deck to take him down, isn't it?"

Loki is silent, considering that for a moment, and then he sighs. "It's rather likely even that won't be enough," he admits.

He has to admit, he was kind of afraid of that. Still, it doesn't seem worth worrying about now. They'll do what they can to get the world ready regardless; if it's enough, it's enough. If it's not...

Well, they'll worry about that when it comes down to it.

"So what's it feel like when this guy opens up his link to your head and starts digging around in there?" he asks, squinting in the dim lighting to check some wiring. He moves one component aside with his credit card to consider another piece, then adjusts it.

"Mm." Loki takes a moment to consider his response, and then he says, "'Digging' is an apt description, I think. Tell me, Stark: Have you ever had someone open you up and take out pieces without your consent?"

Tony thinks of his arc reactor and reaches up to rub away a ghost pain that settles in the mass of scar tissue that is his chest. "More or less."

"It is similar, I think. The Titan reaches in and tries to catch my thoughts, control parts of my mind I would rather he not access..." Loki shakes his head. "There is only so much I can do to protect those things, and it is becoming increasingly difficult."

"So, what, he can read your mind?"

Loki grimaces. "That is the least of my worries, I assure you. If he delves too deep... Have you ever attended a puppet show, Stark?"

It's Tony's turn to grimace. "Okay, so puppets are sort of a hot-button issue with me right now. The whole Ultron thing... Let's not bring those up right now, okay?"

"As you will."

"But I get it. I think. He can make you do things you don't want to do." He glances sideways at Loki. "Sort of like what you did to Clint. And Selvig."

"Similar, but not quite."

"How is it any different? You took them over so they'd do what you wanted."

Loki frowns and pointedly keeps his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of the television. "Not what I wanted."

"What he wanted. Fine. But you did the same thing to them. Maybe you didn't have any control over yourself when you did it, I don't know, but how is it any different than what this Titan guy has done—is trying to do—to you?"

Loki sets down the remote and starts to stand. "I think I will take my leave of you now."

"What?" Tony shunts the scanner components off of his lap so that he can jerk forward and catch Loki's sleeve. "No, hey, you don't have to leave. Sorry. I'm not trying to antagonize you or anything. It's just a question. I'll stop."

Loki frowns at him. "You still do not trust me," he accuses.

"How do you figure that? Because I questioned just how different what you did was from what the Titan is doing to you? That has nothing to do with trust, Loki. I'm just trying to understand." It does raise a good question, though. Does he trust Loki? He's not sure. It took a near-death experience for Tony to trust—really trust—the Avengers, and he's not exactly looking to repeat that with Loki. So does he trust him? Maybe. He trusts Loki's motivations, more or less, and he trusts that Loki really does want his help right now. Is that enough?

Loki shakes his head and pulls his sleeve out of Tony's grip. "If you cannot see fit to—"

"Part of my chest is hollow," Tony says, quickly, before Loki can finish his sentence. "I had the arc reactor taken out, but it left a gaping hole where ribs and muscle and stuff was supposed to be. It's covered with synthetic skin, but there's not actually anything in there."

Loki blinks at him, then tilts his head to one side. "Show me."

"Show you what? It just looks like skin. It has scars on it so that it'll match the rest of me, but other than that it just looks like skin."

"Then you should have no objection to showing it to me."

Tony wrinkles his nose. "Bossy," he accuses, but he tugs up his t-shirt to give Loki a clear view. He's only vaguely startled when the god sits back down, close enough to him that their knees are touching, and immediately presses the palm of his hand against Tony's chest.

"Um..."

"Quiet," Loki says, and he explores the area with his fingers.

Tony holds his breath for a moment while he tries to figure out what Loki is doing, and then he furrows his brow. "Are you looking for the seam?"

"Yes."

"Loki, you can't just take off my fake skin."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I can."

"Yeah, well, how about you don't? I don't exactly have more of this stuff lying around the house."

"Very well." He taps a finger against Tony's chest instead, looking for the hollow bit. Once he finds it, he flattens his palm there, considering.

Tony waits for him to move or do something else for about a minute before he shifts. Loki is incredibly close to him right now, and he seems to be less full of crazy than he was earlier, in the lab. Loki is attractive. Tony can admit to that, although it doesn't make it any less weird. A million possibilities run through his head; he dismisses them all. The last thing he wants to do right now is give Rhodey's "Plan B" theory a leg to stand on.

"Are we having a moment right now?" he asks instead. "Because this seems weirdly intimate to me. Does it seem weirdly intimate to you?"

"Do you realize how much easier it would be for someone to rip out your heart now that you've provided them a clear tunnel through which to do it?"

"And it's gone. Good job. You killed our moment."

Loki laughs softly and eases away, settling back into the couch. "I will endeavor to avoid doing so again."

"See that you do." Tony lowers his shirt and starts to gather all of his scanner parts back up. "So you're going to stick around?"

"For a time."

"Okay." He pauses. "You're not planning to rip out my heart or anything, right?"

"Not at the moment."

Tony nods, satisfied. "Didn't think so."

"But you still felt the need to check," Loki points out.

"Shut up and watch TV."


	11. Chapter 11

Tony wakes up the next morning lying half-off the sofa with drool crusted at the corner of his mouth and Loki asleep and leaning partly against his side. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he gets his bearings, then sighs and lies back down.

"FRIDAY?"

' _Sir?_ '

"Is Loki a heavy sleeper?"

' _I'm afraid I don't know, sir._ '

"Guess we'll have to find out." Tony makes sure the coast is clear and then rolls off the couch onto the floor.

For his part, Loki slumps over so that he's lying across the entire couch, but he doesn't wake up.

Tony nods, satisfied. "And now we know. FRIDAY, get a shower running for me upstairs. Extra hot. And queue up the headlines while you're at it. The usual roundup, you know the ones, but take out any talking about Stuttgart." He stands and stretches, trying to work the ache out of his back. "How long was I asleep?"

' _Nearly nine hours, sir._ '

"Hey, new record. Do you think Loki's magic whammy had anything to do with that? Don't answer. Rhetorical. He warned me I'd sleep a while when his spell wore off." He turns off the television on his way past and heads upstairs.

The shower goes a long way toward making him feel human again, and Tony finds himself humming as he wanders into the bedroom. He scrubs at his hair with a towel to dry it and crosses the room to pick out a clean t-shirt. He expects FRIDAY to start reading out the headlines as he does, and he jerks his head up when a smooth, English voice—a familiar one—starts instead.

"The weather in Malibu is 76 degrees with scattered clouds. The surf conditions are—"

Tony cuts him off. "Vision, what are you doing here?"

Vision emerges from a spot near the window and spreads his hands. "The Captain asked that I relay a message."

"And you decided the best way to do that was to creep around my bedroom? While I'm naked?"

"I assure you, I have seen it all before."

Tony rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Okay, this is killing me. Do you remember everything from JARVIS's programming, or are you just messing with me? Because I can't figure out which it is and it's driving me crazy."

Vision ignores him and steps forward. "What happened in Stuttgart?"

"What do you mean, what happened in Stuttgart?"

"I'm told you attacked Wanda."

Tony furrows his brow and foregoes finding a shirt in favor of finding pants. He pulls them on and looks back at Vision as he's zipping them up. "Well, yeah. I'm the bad guy, remember?"

"But you are not, in truth."

That's more accurate than Vision realizes, but he can't exactly tell him that. Not without ruining everything Loki is trying to do. So, instead, Tony just shakes his head.

"I know that. Come on. I'm just putting on a show, you know? Making it seem real."

"Have you made any progress in learning Loki's plans?"

Tony keeps silent. He has, of course. The problem is, he knows now that this is going to be a long game, and he can't exactly keep stringing the Avengers along while Loki continues to whip them into shape, so to speak. The team isn't going to put up with that—apparently they're getting their pants in a twist that he hasn't brought Loki in by now, and it's only been a few days—and Tony isn't sure how to go about explaining all this to them.

Maybe he should have let Cap send Natasha in for this. Natasha wouldn't be nearly so conflicted. She goes in, she gets the job done, she gets out. That's her thing. Tony's thing more involves drinking and spending the night on the couch with someone who is supposed to be the bad guy, and that's a lot more complicated. Because he likes Loki. He does. He wants to believe him when Loki says he's doing what he's doing for the sake of the universe writ large; he wants to prove that even someone who has done bad, awful, unforgiveable things isn't entirely without merit. He wants to give Loki a chance, because maybe, if he does that, it means Tony gets another chance, too. He can't erase everything he's done wrong—Stuttgart, Baltimore, Ultron, and everything that came before that—but maybe he can make himself believe he's still worth saving.

It's something of an uphill battle, he'll admit, and the odds are kind of stacked against him. But still, a guy can dream, can't he?

Vision considers him. "Have you made any attempt to learn of his plans?"

Now that's just hurtful. "Of course I have. This sort of thing takes time, okay? I mean, first I've got to get his trust and then I've got to make my way into the inner workings... I'm working on it." He pulls a shirt out of the drawer and tugs it on. "You can tell Steve that."

"And Thor?"

Tony glances at him. "What about Thor?"

"He worries for you, and for his brother. He seems to think not all is as it seems." Vision watches him. "Tell me, is he right?"

"That's... complicated."

Vision seems to accept that. "He learned from the aliens we are holding captive that Loki's plans extend beyond this world. He is concerned Loki will use you to further his quest for power."

"His quest for... What? No. That's not even what's happening here. Seriously. Tell Thor to give his brother a little more credit, will you?" Tony drags his fingers through his still-damp hair. "Loki's just doing the best he can with what he's got, same as any of us."

He knows as soon as he says it that he's said too much, that he's more or less admitted that he knows more about what Loki is doing than he's told the team, and he waits for Vision to call him on it, but all Vision does is look at him.

Then, a moment later, Vision says, "Clint expressed some concern that you might start to empathize with Loki."

Tony bristles a bit and has to take a deep breath before he can respond. Getting prickly because his team doesn't think he's up for this won't help anybody. Especially if there's even the slightest chance they're right, at least on this front. "Did he?"

"To be precise, he speculated that you might be 'going native.'"

"Now, hey, that's just offensive. He should know better than that." Tony shakes his head. "Look, how about you just go back there and you let everyone know I've got this covered, okay? I'm working my own angle. It's fine. Everything is fine."

"And Loki?"

"What about Loki?"

"He was somewhat unwell before. How is he now?"

Tony hesitates, thinking back to the mostly finished scanner still sitting on his living room floor, where he must have dropped it when he fell asleep, and he shakes his head. "He's going to be fine. I think. I told you, I've got this. And you don't have to keep popping in and checking up on me, either. I'm a grown man. I don't need a babysitter."

"Of course not," Vision concedes. "However, if you find you are in need of assistance—"

"I'm not," Tony interrupts. "I won't be."

Vision ignores him, but he doesn't complete his thought. "SHIELD has intervened on behalf of your interest in Stark Industries," he says instead. "Colonel Rhodes thought you might want to know that."

It's weird to think SHIELD has his back on this, all things considered, but Tony supposes it kind of makes sense. They may not care much about him, personally, but they definitely care about keeping him happy and wealthy. After all, if Stark Industries freezes his shareholder investments, he's not exactly going to be as willing to devote his resources toward funding the Avengers and all of their experimental stations and weapons and fancy new toys. He has more money than he knows what to do with even without all of that, sure, but SHIELD knows where his priorities lie, and it's not with them.

Besides, it's about time they gave him a little something back, isn't it? After everything he's done for them—redesigning their helicarrier, consulting on special projects, intercepting a nuclear weapon and almost dying—helping him keep his company is really the least they can do.

"Well," he says. "Good. Okay. Tell him thanks, then."

Vision inclines his head. "That will be all, then?"

"Absolutely. Get out of my bedroom." He pauses. "And don't do this anymore. The showing up unannounced thing. It's super creepy, and eventually Loki is going to walk in on us while you're here and things are going to get awkward. Seriously, are you trying to make this harder on me?"

"It seemed more cautious to come like this than it did to use your sound system as I did before. It is considerably easier to tell whether you are alone in person."

He has a point there, little as Tony wants to concede it. "Right, yeah, I guess. Just quit doing it, all right? You're freaking me out, and I've got a weak heart."

"I happen to know you had that fixed."

"It's complicated."

Vision shakes his head and steps back, toward the glass wall. "I will report back to Captain Rogers, then. Do you want me to pass anything else along?"

"No. Yes." He shakes his head. "Not really. But how's Wanda doing? Okay?"

Vision considers him for a moment before he answers. "She suffered some minor bruising and scratches during your last encounter, but she is overall in good health."

"My bringing a building down on her didn't trigger some kind of PTSD or anything?"

"If it did, she has not brought it up." Vision spreads his hands. "However, perhaps it would be wise to avoid such things in the future?"

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind." Tony turns away to retrieve a pair of socks, and when he turns back, Vision is gone. He stays still for a minute or two, just in case the guy is hiding, and then goes to his bed to sit and pull on his socks.

He's on his way back downstairs when he realizes Vision never answered his question about whether or not he remembers things from JARVIS's code, and he makes a mental note to press him more about that next time he stops by, since Tony doesn't believe for a second that he's going to keep his distance like Tony asked.

Once he hits the foot of the stairs, he sees in his peripheral vision that Loki is sitting up, so he heads toward the kitchen to make them both coffee and says, "Morning, sunshine. Sleep well? You pretty much passed out last night. It was pretty impressive. I guess classic movies aren't really your thing. No problem. They're not really my thing, either. Next time we'll just have—"

' _Sir,_ ' FRIDAY interrupts, ' _I don't believe he can hear you._ '

"What do you mean he can't hear me? He's right..." He looks over and notices the blank, vacant look in Loki's eyes. "Oh." Then, after a pause. "Oh! FRIDAY, the scanner. Is it operational? Are we good?"

' _I believe you mostly completed it last night, sir, although you did ask me to remind you to test it before using it on a living subject._ '

"Well, no time for that. He's trancing now." He abandons the coffee and scoops the scanner up off the floor. He flips a switch and smacks one end with the heel of his hand a few times to get it started up. "How long has he been like this?"

' _Not long, sir. Perhaps a minute._ '

He knows he asked, but, honestly, it's still not very helpful. Tony's witnessed a few of these now, and there doesn't seem to be any real consistency in how long they last. A few seconds, minutes... The one yesterday lasted almost ten minutes, but how common is that? Loki said it was getting harder to block the Titan, so maybe they're getting longer as it gets more difficult. But what does that mean, anyway? Does it mean the Titan is getting more powerful? That Loki is getting weaker? Or is it a proximity kind of thing—does it mean the Titan is getting closer to Earth and he and Loki have even less time to prepare for his arrival than they think?

"Guess we'll have to hope for the best," Tony decides, and he bangs the portable scanner against the side of the table to keep it from making a weird grinding noise. Once it stops, he points it at Loki's head and carefully moves it around to get a 360-view. After the head, he moves to Loki's chest and does the same thing, and he keeps going until he gets to somewhere around Loki's stomach. He's on his knees on the floor in front of Loki, trying to figure out how to scan Loki's back, when the god jerks back to alertness.

When Tony looks up, Loki is frowning at him, his brow furrowed. He turns off the scanner.

"What?"

"I didn't realize your device was ready."

"Well, strictly speaking, it's probably not, but I wasn't sure when we'd have an opportunity to do this again any time soon, seeing as how long you went between episodes this time around, so I figured we should just go for it and we'd deal with the consequences after the fact."

"Consequences such as?"

"Radiation poisoning, that sort of thing. No big deal, and I'm way more vulnerable to that sort of thing than you are, trust me."

"Hm."

Tony starts to say something more, then stops, considering Loki. Even though Loki slept—Tony saw him sleep, even, so he knows he did—he looks haggard. Worn. He looks paler than usual, if that's even possible, and his eyes seem more hollow than Tony remembers.

He swallows his wry comment. "Rough night?"

"I slept fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Comparatively? Yes."

Tony decides he really doesn't want to know what Loki is comparing it to. He sets the scanner back on the coffee table and uses the couch to help himself stand up. "I'm having coffee. Do you want coffee?" He pauses. "Do you know what coffee is?"

"I do, and I would not protest."

Tony nods and heads for the kitchen. "I'll upload the scan results to FRIDAY's database to compare against the static image from before. Maybe that will help us figure out where to start looking."

Loki stands, dusts himself off, and follows Tony into the kitchen. "And if it does not?"

"Then we move on to a new plan." He takes a deep breath, thankful FRIDAY already got the coffee pot started while he was busy with Loki, and finds two clean mugs. "Don't ask me what the new plan might be. I haven't gotten that far. It might just involving hitting you upside the head a few times and seeing if that helps."

"I've told you, that is not—"

"I know." He pours the coffee. "Just trust me okay? I'm going to figure this out."

"How?"

Tony holds a cup of coffee out to Loki. "What did I just say? Does that sound like trust to you?" He shakes his head as Loki takes the cup and holds it between his palms, completely ignoring the mug's handle. "Don't worry, okay? I've got this."

"I certainly hope so."

Something in Loki's tone makes Tony look up at him. Loki's face is completely passive, not giving anything away, but somehow that in itself is enough of a tell. Tony hesitates.

"This one was bad, huh?"

It takes Loki a moment to answer, and Tony guesses that's because he's not really sure how. Finally, though, he nods, just slightly, and says, "He's trying harder, I think."

Tony can't hold back a shudder, and he takes a drink of his coffee to try and quell the uneasiness working a hole in the pit of his stomach. "We'll fix this," he says. "Promise."

*** 

Once FRIDAY processes the new scan results, Tony runs a comparison against the old scan and highlights the differences in an iridescent blue, just to make them easier to see against the rest of the image. When he does that, Loki's system lights up like a Christmas tree, starting from Loki's head and continuing down to where Tony finished the scan around his lower abdomen. There's no real pattern to it—or at least nothing immediately jumps out at him—and Tony turns the scan, trying to get an idea of just how far this goes.

"This is..." Tony turns it back to the original view. "It goes deeper than I thought it would. I figured it would be centered in one place so we could focus all our work on that. His brain, maybe. But it's everywhere." He shakes his head. "What are we looking at? What do these represent in the scan?"

 _'Areas of high energy, sir._ '

"Like, what, areas of high blood flow? Is this physiological, then?" He expands one of the brightest spots and considers it, brow furrowed. "Maybe these bright spots are tethers or something. Places where this Titan guy has his hooks set the deepest." He goes back to the big picture. "How many of them are there?"

' _Forty-six, sir_.'

"Yikes." He drags his fingers through his hair. "I guess I can just... I don't know. Try unraveling the little knots first, see if that gets me anywhere, then start on the big ones? Maybe we can weaken the connection, at least, if we can't sever it completely. Might help."

' _Sir, if I may..._ '

"May away. Please."

' _The bright spots seem to correspond with the areas of scar tissue you noted in the first scan._ '

He gives himself a moment to process that before he scrubs his hands against his face. "Of course they do, because of course Loki is keeping something from me. Why wouldn't he be? I'm just trying to help him, that's all, like the idiot I am." He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Anything else you can tell me about these things?"

' _No, sir._ '

"Really? Nothing?" He takes a seat. "All right, maybe I need to go back to the source. What's our pretty little liar doing right now?"

' _He seems to be resting, sir._ '

"While I'm down here, hard at work? Does that seem fair to you?" He snaps his fingers at FRIDAY's sensor. "Wake him up. Get him down here."

' _Under what pretense, sir?_ '

"No pretense. Just tell him it's time he earned his keep." He pulls up the old scan result and puts it side-by-side with the new one. "Now, it's not that I don't trust you, but highlight the scar tissue clusters for me. Put them in gold and give me an overlay, both scans together. Any place where they overlap, make them green."

FRIDAY does, creating a new image to put alongside the other two. Tony minimizes the others to concentrate on that one, and he shakes his head.

"Okay, so I know green is his color, but come on. Look at this. He's a mess."

"I assume you mean me," Loki says as he walks in. "I would take offense, perhaps, if I knew the context."

Tony glances his way. For all that FRIDAY said he was resting, Loki still looks pretty awful. He's paler than Tony remembers him being upstairs, too. So much for beauty rest. "Remember the other day when I called out all your internal damage and you blamed it on the Hulk?"

"I do seem to recall a conversation along those lines, yes."

"Yeah, let's try that again." He turns the image toward Loki. "See, the entire time you're trying to block the Titan, your body is working overtime in pretty much every one of these areas, and they're all areas with lots of scar tissue." He pauses, trying—and failing—to read Loki's face. "Still want to blame all that on Jolly Green?"

Loki comes closer, reaching out to touch the hologram. He brushes his fingers over one of the green areas—the one that represents his heart—and then drops his hand. "Oh.”

"Oh? That's all you've got for me?" Tony frowns. "Level with me. What's going on here?"

"These should have healed by now."

"They did heal. That's why the scar tissue is there."

Loki glances sideways at him. "Scars fade," he reminds Tony. "For you, perhaps it takes years, but the process is somewhat faster for me."

"How much faster?" Tony asks. He's been in fights with Thor; he knows it takes a lot to injure that guy in the first place, and that on the rare occasion something does manage to leave a mark, it usually takes care of itself and disappears in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. "Like, what? Two years instead of ten?"

"More along the lines of months, Stark. Weeks, perhaps, if the original wound was not too egregious." He turns the image. "I attributed your earlier finding in part to the incident on Svartalfheim, in truth, but I found little reason to remind you that I'd deceived Thor into believing me dead."

"Okay, sure, but even that was a while ago, wasn't it?"

Loki shrugs. "The dark elves use weapons enchanted with old magics, some of which can complicate the healing process. It's rare, but it seemed the most likely."

"But it's not that, is it? I mean, I know you heal fast, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have made it very far if you'd been stabbed through the heart and the brain."

"No," Loki agrees.

Tony waits for him to offer a new suggestion, but, when he doesn't, he prompts him. "So?"

"I don't remember it all," he answers, finally. "I suppose you could say I was not myself at the time."

"Meaning?"

He gestures to the image. "These are mostly wounds I inflicted on myself, Stark."

"No."

"Yes."

Tony shakes his head. "How is that even possible? I mean, given where they are, I'm seriously not even sure how you'd be capable of it."

"Oh, don't mistake my meaning. They were not all my doing."

"Right, but even so..." He cuts himself off as he realizes. "The Mind Stone."

Loki inclines his head. "The very same."

"So you mean to tell me that this Titan guy used the stone to make you rip yourself apart? And I mean that more or less literally, so you know."

"There were other factors involved. The Titan turned my mind against me, and under the stone's influence..." He spreads his hands. "Well, causing myself harm was hardly difficult."

"Just so you know? That's sick." He rubs his hands together, momentarily looking away from Loki and from the hologram image. He can't do it for long; a thought occurs to him and he has to look back. "It doesn't really explain why those parts of you are going crazy on the scan, though."

"Doesn't it?" Loki traces a thin blue line—one of the few places where the blue and the gold didn’t overlap. He starts at his heart and traces it up toward the brain. "Consider the Mind Stone like a slow-acting poison, Stark. If it is not treated quickly, it compromises the entire system."

Tony is altogether too familiar with slow-acting poisons, and Loki's metaphor strikes close to home. He rubs at his chest and tries to forget the way the palladium burned as it pushed through his bloodstream. "How long were you under his control, exactly? His direct control?"

Loki is quiet for a while as he considers his answers, and he finally shakes his head. "It felt like years, but time moves differently in the Void. I can't be sure."

"Too long," Tony guesses. "I mean, this… It's everywhere."

"Yes." Something that looks an awful lot like resignation passes through Loki's expression. "Naturally I do not expect you to—"

He points at him. "I made you a promise, and Tony Stark never breaks a promise. I'm going to fix this." He looks at the hologram again. "I just have to figure out how."

"Ah, and that is the trick, isn't it?" Loki makes a sweeping gesture with his arm. "There is no cure for this, Stark. There is no antidote. You can make all the promises you'd like, but that hardly means—"

"What if we overloaded your system?" he interrupts, ignoring Loki. "I know you said blunt force trauma wasn't as affective with this sort of thing as it was with getting you out of Clint's, but if we apply the same principle and just attack these green spots some other way, maybe that'll help break a few of those leftover mental links."

Loki pauses and takes a moment to process the suggestion. "In what other way, Stark?"

"Not by smacking you around, if that's what you're afraid of. If that was going to work, you'd have been free of this guy long before now." He combs his fingers through his hair. "Physical trauma isn't going to do it. But there are other angles we can try."

"Such as?"

"I could blast you with radiation. That works with cancers, sometimes, and this is kind of like a cancer, right? A really aggressive cancer." He pauses. "Then again, you've been in space. Space is full of radiation, I think. FRIDAY, confirm that, will you?"

' _It is, sir, although I imagine it is not precisely the type you are referring to._ '

"Radiation is radiation." He rubs at his chin and watches out of the corner of his eyes as Loki sighs, waves a hand, and makes a chair appear out of thin air. The god takes a seat.

Tony gets an idea.

"Magic."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Mind Stone is this ancient thing, right?"

"Yes."

"Right, and what else is an ancient thing?" Tony doesn't wait for Loki to respond. "Magic. That's at least as old as you and Thor, and it's probably older than that, right? So why don't we try using an ancient thing to counteract the aftereffects of an ancient thing?"

Loki frowns. "If you think I have not tried to use my seidr to break this connection, you are grossly underestimating me."

"Yeah, maybe you have, but you didn't know where to target it. Now you do." He spins the hologram. "Bonus points if we can somehow combine your hocus pocus with my scientific genius for an amazing combo move."

Loki doesn't even try to hide his doubt. "You speak as though science and seidr are different things, Stark, and they are not."

He waves a dismissive hand. "I've heard that spiel from Thor before, and I've got to tell you, I don't think that's totally true. I figure they're based in the same things, sure, the same principles, but somewhere along the line they diverged and became too totally different things. Like how humans and apes ultimately evolved from the same species."

"What?"

"Don't tell me evolution is too hard for you. Okay. Then it's like... Say I've got a pig, and I use one part of the pig to make ham and another part of the pig to make, I don't know, a pork chop. Both come from the same animal, but the taste, the texture, everything is completely different. Get it?"

Loki shakes his head. "Regardless of whether you are correct in your theory or no—"

"I totally am."

"You are not, and the issue of how you intend to do this remains. If we had another seidr master, perhaps, but as we do not, it simply is not possible."

"I'm assuming 'seeder master' or whatever is code for 'wizard.' Also, are you telling me you aren't good enough to use magic on yourself?"

Loki frowns at him. "I am saying that a working of this magnitude—and of such precision—requires the user not also be the subject, Stark. It is not so simple as you might think."

"Fine then. You say I'm wrong and science and magic are the same thing, so prove me wrong. Learn me up. I'll take care of everything."

Loki is too dignified to sputter, but he certainly does something that sounds a lot like sputtering. "That... I can't merely..."

Tony grins. Either way Loki answers, he'll have to admit Tony is right. He really can't lose. "What? Is your ham too different from my pork chop for this to work, or are you just stunned by my genius idea?"

Loki shakes his head. "I have been honing my craft for hundreds of years, Stark. You can't honestly expect that I will be able to teach it to you."

"I learn fast. Trust me." He shrugs. "And besides, I really only need to know enough to put the whammy on what the Mind Stone did to you, right? How hard could that be?"

"You're mortal."

"Yeah, and you're desperate." Tony sits back. "I don't think you really have any other choice, Loki. So how about it? Are you up for this or not?"

Loki doesn't answer at first, and Tony watches him as he considers the brightly lit image of his bioscan, as he takes in the extent of the damage done to him by the Mind Stone—and by extension, the Titan. Loki has his own reasons for wanting to take this guy down. With the physical proof of what the Titan did in front of him, Tony can't exactly say he blames him for it, and, to be honest, he wants to help him do it.

They need to take this guy out, and they can't do it—they can't even start to think about doing it—if Loki is spending all of his time just trying to keep him out of his head. It's too much.

Loki needs Tony's help. He knows it. He has to.

The hard part, Tony supposes, is admitting it.

Finally, Loki exhales. "I will try to teach you," he says, "although I've my doubts as to whether this—any of this—will work."

Tony shrugs. "You can doubt all you want. The important thing is that we try."

***

That sounds good in theory, but the problem is that Tony and Loki speak completely different languages. The words make sense, sure, but the concepts don't line up. Loki's understanding of how things work is completely different from Tony's, and even when they start with small things—like centripetal force, for instance, which Loki insists is relevant—nothing syncs up.

After a few hours of trying, Tony groans and falls back onto his couch, arm over his eyes. "My ham and pork chop theory is sounding more and more plausible," he says.

Loki perches on the arm of the couch closest to Tony's head and hands Tony a drink, which is a little unsettling since Tony isn't sure when he ever went to the bar. "It really is not."

"Yeah, you keep saying that." He takes the drink. "Okay. Maybe you teaching me to do the voodoo that you do was a bad idea. But this could still work. The overloading your system thing, I mean."

"Mm."

He takes runs this thumb along the lip of his glass, trying to work through it in his head. "I wish there was some way to take your magic and channel it somewhere else. You know, so that you're still providing the whammy, but someone else—me—is controlling the how and the where."

Loki glances at him. "Do you have a means of doing so?"

"Of channeling you? No."

"Of course not," Loki chides. "Of controlling the seidr."

Tony jerks up, almost spilling his drink in the process. "Wait. Are you telling me you can channel your magic through things?"

Loki furrows his brow. "Well, yes. Seidr is its own entity, Stark. The entire art of using seidr is in learning to channel and control it, not in creating it from nothing."

"Like electricity. It exists in nature, but if we want to use it, we've got to source it through something else." Tony stands up and starts pacing. "Oh. OH. That makes so much more sense. Okay. We're going about this all wrong, then. I don't need to learn how to do what you do. I've just got to work up the right way to use it."

Loki watches him. "Does such a thing exist?"

"It can. Absolutely it can." He snaps the fingers of his free hand. "The scanner downstairs doesn't work when you're in your armor because you've worked all kinds of spells into it. It's putting up some kind of magical interference, and the scanner picks it up as static. That means I can track it. I've just got to pinpoint the right frequency, find something I know that's comparable, and engineer a channeling device to match. It's brilliant. Seriously. Did I mention I was a genius? Because I'm a genius."

Loki clears his throat.

Tony glances at him. "You helped," he admits. "I'll give you, like, ten percent of the credit."

"I'll take sixty-three," Loki decides.

"You didn't help that much."

"Regardless."

Tony wrinkles his nose. "Fine, do what you want. I don't care. I'm a genius."

"Of course you are," Loki says in a way that makes it sound like he's talking to a little kid. "I assume you will need my help in identifying the appropriate frequency?"

"If you want, but I think I could probably do it with just your coat. Because I'm a genius."

Loki rolls his eyes and stands up. "You certainly are something," he agrees as he makes his way back down to Tony's workshop.

Tony finishes his drink before he follows.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony is a genius, and, as it turns out, Loki is also a genius, so between the two of them they identify the frequency—or what passes as a frequency, at least—of Loki's magic within an hour. From there, it's actually easier than Tony expects to find something they can repurpose to channel Loki's magic—or it is once Loki explains how the power will transfer from him to the device and then back to Loki.

"So it's pretty much done with mirrors," Tony says as he finishes tightening a few screws.

Loki glances at him. "There are no mirrors involved."

He rolls his eyes. "It's a metaphor."

"It is a terrible metaphor."

"Your face is a terrible metaphor."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Truly a comeback worthy of your intellect, Stark. I expected nothing less of you."

Tony laughs. "Don't be a jackass. Hand me that level."

Loki does and sits back to watch Tony work. "Assuming you are correct, Stark, and this does work as you think it will—"

"It will."

Loki presses his lips tightly together, just for a moment, and then continues on. "Assuming it works, what precisely do you assume will happen next?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean," Loki says, "do you intend to return to your team to prepare to fend off the Titan?"

Tony pauses to consider that, then glances up at him. "Honestly, I hadn't thought that far ahead. I could, I guess."

"You could," Loki agrees. "This would fulfill your end of our bargain."

He sets the level aside and follows the internal wiring to make sure everything is connected appropriately. "Do you want me to?"

Loki frowns. "I hardly think it is my decision to make. You should do whatever it is you prefer."

"And my options are, what? Stay here and villain it up with you to help prep the world for what might actually be an apocalyptic event or make some kind of super public apology and retake my place as one of Earth's mightiest heroes?"

"I suppose so, yes." Loki pauses. "It really is not much of a choice."

"No," Tony agrees. "I guess it's not." He finishes checking the parameters and then sits back, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his arm. "That's it. We're done."

Loki considers the device—something Tony put together using a switchboard, a makeshift synthesizer, and the big workshop scanner—and looks entirely unimpressed. "Are you certain?"

"Of course I am. I mean, I left off all the bells and whistles and fancy casing to save us a little time, but it's done. As done as it's going to get." For now, anyway. If this works... Well, Tony can only just begin to imagine what else they could do with a machine capable of controlling magical energies. It could open all kinds of doors in medicine, engineering... There are near limitless possibilities.

Loki, for his part, just shakes his head. "Let's get on with it, then."

"All right, fine. If you want to rush through our initial testing and development phase, that's on your head. Don't hold me responsible if I accidentally make you explode."

"If you do, I will find a way to torment you after death," Loki promises.

"That's very reassuring. Thank you." Tony turns a dial all the way to the end. "Should I kiss you for luck or something?"

"I hardly think that would be appropriate."

It's not a no, exactly, but, regardless, Tony shrugs. "Suit yourself." He checks his settings and looks to Loki. "Okay, are you ready? I'll need a huge blast of whatever you've got to fire this up."

Green and gold sparks fly from Loki's fingertips as he makes a complicated gesture in the air. "Of course I'm ready."

"Showoff." Still, Tony smiles as he twists another dial. "All right, Pat Benatar. As they say in the song, hit me with your best shot."

Loki hardly even needs the prompt; before Tony can even finish his sentence, he has the air crackling around them, and waves of color are creeping through Tony's peripheral vision, twisting and intertwining and becoming new colors he doesn't quite recognize.

Tony lets out a breath. "Is this what it's always like?"

Loki, for a moment, looks surprised, and then smug. "When it's done right," he says, and the colors somehow get more interesting and strange, and Tony almost forgets to look down at the synthesizer readings.

The synthesizer is going crazy as it reads and interprets Loki's frequency, and Tony hovers over the "record" button, waiting for the moment it hits a maximum read. It doesn't take long, and after Tony hits the button the inner workings start to glow, the light creeping up from the cracks around the buttons and switches. He waits, watching as the glow gets stronger and, finally, reaches the switchboard, and then he gives Loki the 'OK' sign and turns on the switchboard.

At Tony's cue, Loki lets the magic in the air die away. Tony can actually feel it as it ebbs and fades, and part of him is tempted to have Loki fire it back up just so he can take a proper look at it and study it and figure out how he's doing whatever it is he's doing, but he puts that part of him aside—for now. The last thing he wants is to start the next part of their plan with Loki drained and out of sorts; if things go wrong, that won't be good for anybody.

At about the same time as the hairs on the back of Tony's neck stop standing up, Loki looks to him, eyebrows arched. Tony looks down at his makeshift device and considers the dull glow still emanating from within, then looks back up and nods.

"I think we've got it," he says.

"It won't last."

"What, your jazz has an expiration date?"

Loki shakes his head. "Seidr does not like to remain idle for very long. It will not be contained without purpose."

Well, there go some of Tony's world-changing ideas. That's all right; he'll make new ones. He's good at that. "Then I guess we'd better keep going. Should we test it first?"

"No. Either it will work or it won't."

"Right." Tony exhales. "You're sure you're up for this?"

"I'll manage," Loki answers as he steps onto the scanner platform and shrugs off his duster. He doesn't move to take off the rest of his armor—and, really, Tony isn't entirely sure when he put it back on, and he's not sure whether or not he should be insulted, although he's guessing Loki doesn't really mean anything by it—and instead clasps his hands behind his back, waiting.

"Good enough for me," Tony says. "You want a stool or anything? No?" He extends his arms in front of him and cracks his knuckles. "Then let's do this. FRIDAY?"

' _Sir?_ '

"Play me something. Your choice, but keep it mood appropriate." He grins when he sees Loki wrinkle his nose. "Relax. If we do this right, you won't be able to hear more than the first few bars anyway."

"When I return to haunt you, I think I will start by destroying all of your so-called music."

Tony scoffs. "Go ahead and try it. See what happens." He dances his fingers over the switchboard, familiarizing himself with the sequence. "Maestro?"

As the first few bars of 'The Marriage of Figaro' start playing over the speakers, Tony starts the modified scanner, punches the "play" button on the synthesizer, and quickly moves back to the switchboard.

It seems to work just as he'd planned it: The synthesizer and switchboard contain and let Tony control Loki's own magical frequency, and the scanner keeps the focus on Loki while allowing Tony the extra bonus of being able to more or less decipher what it's all doing to Loki. There's a delay—maybe a thirty, forty second one—between when the frequency starts and when the scanner gets a reading, and it doesn't tell Tony anything too specific, but it at least monitors vitals and keeps him up-to-date on how much abuse they're putting Loki through at any given time.

No explosions so far. That's a good sign, right?

Tony glances up as Loki shuts his eyes and tenses, his entire body going taut with the effort of standing still. Tony sucks in a breath, watching him, and then winds a dial on the switchboard, increasing the frequency.

"Hang in there," he says, raising his voice to be heard over the orchestra playing over the speakers. "I think we're almost done."

Tony glances at the switchboard as it starts to go haywire and spark in some places. As he watches, a cable comes loose and the entire configuration emits a high-pitched whine. Tony swears and dives underneath it to try and get the wire back where it belongs, but between the noise and the glowing and the ever-present threat of the whole thing catching fire, he can't get a good look at what's come loose.

He's just about to start ripping out cables and forcing the entire operation to a close when everything... stops. And he does mean everything: The entire lab goes dark and Tony hears the tell-tale sound of computers and machinery shutting themselves down.

For a moment, everything is silent. Then, after what seems like an eternity, the emergency lights come on, casting everything in a dull yellow light.

Tony exhales and pushes to his feet. "You okay over there? Loki?"

Loki is standing upright, although if the way he's hanging on to the metal structure of the scanner is any indication, it's something of a feat, and Tony can't tell if the sick pallor to his face is from exhaustion or a side effect of the emergency lights. Either way, he doesn't answer, and he seems to be breathing a little too heavily to be healthy.

Tony starts around the device, toward the scanner—toward Loki. "Hey. Can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Loki swallows audibly, then says, "I'm fine." His voice sounds hoarse, as though he's been shouting, but he hasn't been, has he? Tony would remember it if he were, he's pretty sure, and the music definitely wasn't _that_ loud.

"You don't sound fine." He joins Loki on the scanner bed and considers him. Up close, Loki looks to be in even worse shape. There are dark circles around his eyes and his lips are dry and cracked. How is that even possible? He was fine a minute ago. The magic? Maybe. To be fair, every encounter Tony has had with magic has ended pretty badly. It's dangerous stuff, and he and Loki didn't exactly do a lot of research into what would happen to when Loki more or less used all of his powers against himself.

Loki shakes his head. "I'm fine," he says again, and this time Tony knows for sure he's lying by the way his voice almost breaks. "I'm fine."

Tony shakes his head and tries to sling an arm around Loki's back to steady him. "No, come on, let's get you sitting down." He nudges until Loki lets go of the metal bar. Once he does, Tony immediately remembers that Loki is heavier than he looks and realizes what a terrible idea that was; as soon as Loki lets go of the bar, the full force of his weight hits Tony like a ton of bricks and they both wind up sprawled on the scanner bed.

Tony can't help it; once the initial shock of his suddenly being on the floor wears off, he starts laughing. "Okay," he says. "Okay. This is just getting ridiculous." He pushes himself to sit up and looks down at Loki. "You look like crap."

Loki frowns at him. "That's hardly a nice thing to say."

"Just telling it like it is." He leans back onto his elbows, still looking at Loki. The color in the god's cheeks seems to be returning, slowly, although his eyes still look a little hollow and Tony can still hear a bit of a waver in his voice. "How do you feel?"

"Fine."

"Right, sure, but how do you actually feel?"

Loki shuts his eyes and stays quiet for a moment, almost as though he's trying to evaluate himself, and he furrows his brow. "Quiet."

That isn't exactly the answer Tony was expecting—he was really looking for something more along the lines of 'tired' or 'like hell'—but he'll take it. "Does that mean it worked?" When Loki doesn't answer right away, Tony asks again. "Loki, did it work? Do you feel any different? I'm not sure what 'quiet' means here, so you're going to have to work with me on this. Is 'quiet' a good thing?"

Loki looks at him, eyebrows raised, and then shakes his head and reaches over, briefly pressing a finger against Tony's lips. "Quiet," he says again.

"Oh. That kind of quiet." Tony is silent for a minute or so before he can't take it anymore. "You're really not answering my question. Did it work or not?"

Loki offers him an exasperated look, but, after a few seconds, he nods. "I think it may have."

"So you feel different? You feel better?" Tony twists around to consider the scanner. "When the power comes back, we should test this. Run a scan. See if we can pick anything up. I don't know if we can, but we can try."

"If you'd like." Loki stays prone on the floor and shuts his eyes. "Although I doubt it will tell us anything useful."

He's probably right, but, short of waiting to see if Loki has another episode, what else can they do? Tony nods and tilts his head back. "So are you going to thank me or what?"

The corners of Loki's mouth quirk upward in the start of a smile. "In time, perhaps."

He shakes his head. "Fine, don't thank me. Just make sure you keep your end of the bargain. I'm counting on you." He lies down next to Loki, folding his arms behind his head. "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted."

"Yes," Loki agrees.

"We should probably get up. Get some rest."

"Mm."

Tony turns his head toward Loki, who still has his eyes shut and looks perfectly content to sleep on the scanner bed. "You aren't getting up," he notes.

"Neither are you."

"I'm comfortable," he lies. That said, he's slept in stranger places, so a cold metal platform is actually kind of a step up for him. And to be honest, it's not as bad as Tony expected it to be, although that might be because Loki is lying next to him, more or less pressed against his side.

He's not sure when that started to be comforting, and it's probably better if he doesn't think too much about it. Thinking about that sort of thing just complicates it. In Tony's experience, it's way better to just roll with it and see how everything shakes out.

He shifts slightly, closer to Loki. "Is this what we do now? Pass out next to each other and wake up and not talk about it ever again?"

"Apparently not, as you're talking about it now."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Yeah, but come on. This is getting to be a thing. You realize that, right?"

Loki exhales—not quite a sigh, but close—and shakes his head. "Not for much longer. Now that you've met your end of our bargain, we'll part ways, of course."

Tony frowns. "I never said that."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course you did."

"No, as I remember it, I said I had two options and that one wasn't really an option."

"Exactly."

Tony furrows his brow. "Are we even talking about the same thing? You're telling me I've got to choose between actually doing something useful or wasting all my time trying to repair my public image so I can be a superhero again. How is that a choice?"

Loki turns his head to consider him. "I assumed you would want to return to your team."

"Well, you assumed wrong. It's like I told you when we made our first deal, Loki. We're in this together. That doesn't change just because we're secretly the good guys now."

"And you're certain of this choice?"

Tony shrugs. "I mean, I reserve the right to change my mind if you turn out to be a giant dick or something, but yeah. I'm seeing this through."

"I see."

"Plus, I really hate apologizing to people, so..." Tony offers Loki a grin.

Loki offers a smile in return and starts to say something, but he stops, his brow furrowing, and looks past Tony. Tony twists around, but he doesn't see anything there.

"What...?"

"Quiet." Loki continues to search the shadows past Tony, his eyes narrowed, and Tony watches as he calls up some scrap of magic. His fingers glow green for a moment before they fade.

Tony looks over. "Loki, there's nothing—"

But there is something, and it glints faintly in the dark. Tony bolts onto all fours and starts to scramble for the closest Iron Man suit, but he has to sort of climb over Loki to do that and it's harder than it should be, especially when Loki is pushing at him to get him off of him so that he doesn't block his shot or whatever.

When Loki stops pushing, Tony hesitates, then looks back over his shoulder. The glint is still there, but it's becoming part of something bigger—something that becomes an annoyingly familiar shape when the power finally kicks back on and the lights go a little too bright.

Tony holds a hand over his eyes to block out the sudden light and hisses out a breath through his teeth. "Vision, I told you not to—"

Vision interrupts him. "Is he well?"

"Who, Loki? He's..." Tony trails off as he looks up at Loki, whose eyes have gone completely vacant and blank. "Shit." He waves his hand in front of Loki's eyes and snaps his fingers. "We fixed this. We were sure..."

"The Captain asked me to—"

"Vision, I don't give a fuck what Steve asked you to do." He gets onto his knees, still close to Loki, and searches his face, trying to figure out how bad this episode is. He can't tell, but he can see the stone embedded in Vision's head—the thing that makes Vision the Vision—reflected in Loki's eyes.

The stone.

Tony hesitates and looks back over his shoulder. "It's you," he realizes. "I mean, not you. But the stone. The Mind Stone. It's got to be. Every time you come to visit, this happens."

Vision frowns. "I hardly mean to—"

"Or maybe it's all of the Infinity Stones. I don't know. But that one, yes. Definitely. It being around makes it easier for the guy to get in Loki's head, shows him the most direct route or something..." He trails off. "The Mind Stone is leading the Titan right to him."

"I'm not sure I understand what it is you're talking about," Vision says, taking a step toward them.

Tony waves a hand to get him to stop. "No. Absolutely not. Do not come any closer. You just stay there. It's better for everybody if you just stay there."

"The Captain asked—"

"For the last time, I don't care what he asked," Tony interrupts.

"He—"

"He what? He's pissed that I'm taking so long here? That I haven't fed you guys any information? Well, he can stop asking. I don't know anything, and, even if I did, I wouldn't tell you guys. I'm not on your team anymore. Officially. I'm out."

Vision considers him. "Surely you don't mean that."

"I mean it. I'm out." He runs his fingers through his hair, keeping one hand on Loki's arm as if it will offer Loki any support as he tries to keep the Titan from combing through his brain. "I'm not an Avenger anymore."

It's easier to say than Tony expected. He's enjoyed being an Avenger. It's not all fun and games, sure, and having his ass handed to him in the training ring by Steve, Thor, and Natasha was getting kind of old, but it's been a good few years. They've accomplished a lot. That said, there's bigger stuff going on now. He and Loki, they're trying to save the universe, in their own, roundabout way, and, to be honest, Loki's way is a little more interesting. If nothing else, it involves a lot less redtape.

"I see," Vision answers. He takes his time surveying Tony's workshop. "You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure." It might be a temporary thing, of course, but he figures everything he does to help Loki prep the Avengers for the Titan's arrival will be more or less forgotten when the actual battle comes and he and Loki are there fighting alongside the rest of the team. Clint might never forgive him, but he'll find a way to deal with that.

"SHIELD will withdraw support of your keeping Stark Industries," Vision points out.

And yeah, that's still kind of a punch to the gut, but it hurts a little less now than it did when Pepper first told him about the board's intentions. "Yeah, well, that's my problem," he says.

Vision shakes his head. "I suppose there's nothing I can do to change your mind, then," he says, and takes a step forward, extending his hand. "It has been an interesting experience."

"Yeah, it..."

Tony trails off when he hears something that sounds an awful lot like laughter rumbling somewhere behind him, far away, and he looks back at Loki in time to see something unrecognizable flash behind the god's eyes. He hesitates, then looks back at Vision.

"You came closer," he realizes. "You—"

That's all he gets out before Loki knocks him backward and gets to his feet, his fingertips almost radioactive with magic. Loki is holding himself differently—his stance is wider, his back straighter, his shoulders further back—and he seems somehow taller like this, more powerful.

The most terrifying thing, though, is his eyes. They're hollowed, but this time it doesn't seem to be from exhaustion. It's something worse. Something Tony is almost afraid to name.

"The Titan," he breathes. "He's in."

Loki blinks, slowly, and then trains his manic, too-bright gaze on Tony. His lips stretch into a mockery of a grin, and Tony barely has time to scramble backward before Loki fires a bolt of magic his way.

Tony dives behind a worktable before Loki can take aim again and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Where's the Hulk when you need him?" he laments to himself. "FRIDAY, are you online?"

He's answered with silence—an obvious 'no' if he's ever heard one—and he nods. It figures. Here he has a crazy, hostile alien in what is arguably the most valuable room of his house, and all he has at his disposal is a broken switchboard, a synthesizer, and the Vision. Great.

From the sound of things—the explosions, mostly, and occasional crash and tinkle of broken glass—Loki has refocused his attention on Vision and the two are duking it out. Tony kind of wants to peek up over the table and see how that little encounter is shaking out, but he talks himself out of it. Better to stay hidden until he can come up with a plan that doesn't involve him getting his head blasted off.

He's too far away to get to an Iron Man suit, and he can't have one come to him without FRIDAY around to pinpoint his location. So what does that leave him?

It leaves him with a broken switchboard and a synthesizer, that's what.

Tony hesitates and looks back to the switchboard. He can see where the wiring came loose, where it's hanging down beneath the machine. They must have overloaded a circuit or something while they were blasting Loki, overheated the inner workings, and fried whatever was keeping the wire in place. It would be an easy fix if he had the right supplies to do it.

Then again, he's Tony Stark. Since when does he care about having the right supplies?

He crawls over to the synthesizer, barely avoiding some flying sheet metal in the process, and wedges his way underneath, then pries off a panel to get a good look at how bad things are inside. A few things are scorched, a few others look more worn than they did when Tony first put them together, but overall nothing looks completely unsalvageable.

This is good. He can work with this.

Tony works as quickly as he can, all too aware of what else is going on in the workshop. He tries to ignore the sounds of glass shattering, of tools being scattered, all of that, and when he hears one of his bots—he's not sure which one, but it sounds like DUM-E—whirring, he bites his lower lip and rushes through the last few steps. He'll have to improvise from here, but he's good at that, most of the time.

Fingers crossed.

Tony gets to his feet and powers up the synthesizer. He silently praises himself when it comes to life, and he checks the readings quickly before he hits "record."

Loki notices the change immediately and he turns his attention on Tony, his eyes narrowing. "You can't possibly think that will have any effect on me, Stark. You're deluding yourself."

Tony shrugs. "Hey, a man's got to try." He transfers over to the switchboard and increases the intake valve to its highest level.

He only barely understands the mechanics of how Loki's magic works, but if it's anything like he thinks it is, it has a limit, and if he can have the synthesizer-switchboard doohickey pull as much of it as it can, it'll leave Loki with a little less to work with and maybe—maybe—that will give him a chance to snap Loki out of this and get the Titan out of his head.

Just in case, though, Tony spares the Vision a look. "Now might be a good time to get the rest of the team," he says. "Hint hint."

Both Vision and Loki look at him as though he's an idiot.

"Yes, that's very subtle," Vision says, and he sounds so much like JARVIS that for a moment Tony is tempted to try and mute him.

Subtle or not, Vision disappears, leaving Tony alone with Loki, and Tony realizes just how terrible an idea this was. Even if the Avengers manage to cut their travel time in half, it still leaves Loki with plenty of time to murder him and hide his body. So, yeah, this probably won't end well.

"Um," Tony tries. "Truce?"

Loki's eyes flash and he offers Tony another too-wide grin. It's like New York all over again, except this time with at least twenty percent more crazy and no one around to back him up. Tony tries not to shudder, but he can't help it.

"Was this your plan?" Loki asks. His voice reminds Tony of someone sharpening a razor. "A sorry attempt to sway my affections so that I might spare you when I brought war down on your head?"

Tony raises his hands defensively. "No, Loki. You're fighting on my side of the war now, remember? You and me. We're a team. We—"

"Silence, Stark. I've listened to your prattle long enough." Loki lifts a hand and makes a complicated gesture with his fingers—a move Tony recognizes as the beginnings of a spell.

It's definitely useless, but Tony covers his head with his arms anyway, as if that will help him protect himself, and he screws his eyes shut. He's going to die. Loki is going to shazam him to death. He very nearly trusted him, and now Tony is going to die for it. You'd think a guy would learn, but no, here he is again, trying to remember when he last updated his will.

When about half a minute passes without anything happening, Tony peeks open an eye to see Loki staring down at his hand. One glance at the switchboard, and Tony can tell why. The switchboard—the entire thing, not just the spaces between the controls and dials—is glowing a bright, vibrant green.

Loki is out of juice.

It won't last, of course. Loki told him as much before he went off his rocker: Magic doesn't like to stay in one place for very long, and if Tony doesn't find some way to use this to his advantage right now, at this very moment, it'll jump back into the atmosphere or whatever and Loki will be up and running again like nothing happened. So how can he use this? Can he use it?

Tony exhales, watching Loki. The god is still staring down at his hands and not paying Tony any attention, and that's weird. That's very weird. Loki is usually more with it than this. He was more aware of himself even back in New York. What does it mean that he's not already at Tony's throat now? Tony hopes it means Loki is fighting back against the Titan and trying to regain control of himself, mostly because he's not sure he can think of a scenario where the Titan stays in charge and things end well for him.

If that is the case, maybe Loki could use a hand.

Tony glances at the scanner. He doesn't have much time; as soon as Loki focuses on him again, he's done for. Loki is dangerous even without his magic—Tony knows that firsthand—and he's quick. If Tony wants to stay alive, he's got to act fast and he's got to act now. Never mind that he has no idea if this will work or that the potential for it all to go horribly wrong is obscenely high. He has to take the chance.

He has to try.

Tony slams his hand down on the button that starts up the scanner. The noise it makes as it warms up catches Loki's attention, briefly, and the god glances at it. He's just turning his head to look back at Tony—his mouth twisting into a sneer—when Tony punches the "play" button on the synthesizer and tackles Loki onto the scanner bed.

They fall hard on the metal, but Tony barely feels it as the magic he leeched from Loki hits them and his entire body starts to burn like it's on fire.


	13. Chapter 13

If this is how Loki sees the world all the time, it's no wonder he's constantly teetering on the edge of insanity. Tony sits up and rubs at his eyes to try and dull the fierce color palette painting the world around him like some out-of-control acid trip, but that really only makes things worse.

All right, so Tony has done his fair share of experimentation with various combinations of legal and not-so-legal drugs, but he's not sure he's ever had a trip quite so disarming. Nothing is coming alive or trying to attack him, though, so at least it still ranks a ways above the one and only time he tried 'shrooms.

Speaking of there not being anything trying to attack him...

Tony looks around. "Loki?"

The god is nowhere in sight, which makes no sense whatsoever. He should be right there, next to Tony on the scanner bed, but he's not. He's gone. The only thing left behind is what looks like a string of white twine that trails its way off the scanner bed and out of sight.

Tony picks up one end of the twine—it's longer than he expected, and he still can't see the other end—and he tugs. There's a bit of resistance, as though the twine is caught on something, but otherwise there's nothing.

"Okay," Tony says. "This is weird."

He's not in his workshop anymore, he's mostly sure about that. It looks like his shop—sans the new paint job—but it can't actually be his shop. He doesn't leave twine lying around, for one thing, and his workshop is never this quiet. The silence is a dead giveaway.

Tony gets to his feet. "FRIDAY, I don't suppose you're up and running?"

He's not surprised when he doesn't get an answer; for all that he's created backups of his backups and has a billion and one failsafes in place to keep his AI running, somehow there always seems to be some possibility he missed. Magic-induced catastrophic power failure is just one of the many he'll have to account for in his next patch.

He rubs at his chest with one hand, looking around. It's his workshop but not his workshop. This much he knows. How did he get here? It almost definitely has something to do with the magical frequency he blasted himself and Loki with when he pushed them into the scanner bed, but if that's the case, where's Loki, and why didn't something like this happen the last time he pummeled Loki with his own magic?

He tugs at the twine again, feels the same resistance, and then wraps it around his hand a few times. It's not like he has anything else to do; he might as well see where the string leads, right? Maybe he'll find some answers along the way. Or maybe he'll find Loki.

At the moment, he's not sure if that's better or worse. He has no idea if Loki is still being controlled by the Titan or not. If he is, then seeking him out might not be such a great idea, but Tony figures he'll just have to play the odds.

What's the worst that could happen?

He regrets asking that almost as soon as he steps off the scanner platform, at which point the dramatic colors drain away and the temperature drops about seventy degrees. The sudden wind is the worst part of it, though; Tony squints his eyes shut and hugs his arms to himself, trying to stay warm. When he opens his eyes again, he's temporarily blinded by falling snow.

Okay, so he's definitely not in his workshop. Where is he now? Did Loki teleport them somewhere? The arctic, maybe?

Tony tries to look around to get his bearings, but he can barely see past the snow and the wind makes his eyes water, so he looks down instead. When he takes a step, his feet crunch against the packed snow underfoot. He pokes at a snowdrift with the toe of his sneaker.

"This is insane," he says—or tries to, but his teeth are chattering so hard he can barely get the words out.

Another wind gust has him crouching down, trying to make himself as small a target as possible so he can keep warm, but the attempt is foiled somewhat by the wall of snow that hits him dead on. He sputters and shakes his head to clear his vision. He has to rub at his eyes with his hands to keep ice from building up on his eyelashes, and when he takes his hands away, he sees it:

Another string of twine—this one blue instead of white—half-buried in the snow.

Tony dives for it, digging in the snow to find the end. By the time he finds it, he can't feel his fingers, but he clumsily picks it up and tugs. He gets resistance with this one, too—more than with the other, he thinks, but he's too frozen to be certain. He wraps the blue string around his hand and forces himself to stand despite the wind and the snow, and he takes another step forward.

The snow and wind abruptly disappear, although it takes a little longer for Tony to thaw out, and he rubs the lingering snowflakes from his lashes before he takes another look around.

He doesn't recognize this place, exactly, but it's familiar enough that it makes him breathe a little faster.

It's a cave.

Tony shuts his eyes tight and takes a moment to try and calm his racing heart. This is not the cave in Afghanistan. It's not any cave in Afghanistan. It's too damp. Too well-lit. It is not the same cave. It's not.

Tony fights to control his urge to panic and opens his eyes.

The walls of the cave are lined with lanterns, but the fires inside the lanterns burn a blue so deep it seems almost purple, and the flames don't flicker—they move around almost like moths inside the globe, and they never stay still. The lanterns provide the only light in the cave, but they're bright enough that Tony has no problem picking out the black string curled on the rocky floor.

The sound of hammers striking metal rings in Tony's ears as he picks up the string. It feels different than the other two do, more like surgical sutures than twine, and when he tugs on the end, it feels as though it's cutting a little into his hand. There's no evidence of it when he looks, but he regardless opts to loosely tie the string to his belt loop rather than hold it.

He's quick to leave the cave, for all that he rationally knows it isn't Afghanistan and, in all likelihood, it isn't even real, and he's almost relieved when, a few steps later, he finds himself standing next to a stone slab on a rocky precipice.

There is obviously magic involved in all of this. It just makes sense. When he fell onto the scanner bed with Loki, the scanner blasted the two of them with the magical build-up he'd stored in the switchboard-synthesizer device. Whatever is happening, it's because of that. It has to be. And that means, technically, that this is Loki's doing. This is Loki's magic. It's making him see things—feel things—that he shouldn't be seeing or feeling.

Is this what happened to Loki before, when Tony put him through the scanner? If so, did it all take place in his own mind? Is all of this, everything happening now, just Tony's brain working against him? If so, the blizzard almost makes sense, but what about the cave? Why was it _that_ cave? Why not the one in Afghanistan?

And why here? Why this cliff? It's definitely not a place he recognizes, and the general idea of it doesn't ring any bells. It doesn't mean anything to him. Sure, he's a creative type, but Tony is mostly sure his brain wouldn't invent scenery for him, even during a magic-induced hallucination. So what other explanations are there?

Loki could probably tell him. This sort of thing is more his area than Tony's. But, since Loki is nowhere to be found...

Tony re-wraps the white and blue strings around his hand and checks to make sure the black one is still attached to his belt loop, then takes a look around. It doesn't take him long to find what he's looking for under a rock—another string, this one a dark green. He moves the rock aside and picks it up.

This one doesn't have any give at all; as soon as he tugs it, it goes taut, and it stays that way even after he takes a few steps forward.

Definitely magic. Has to be.

"I'm never going to get used to this," he says to himself, and he steps forward again.

The cliff fades away and, when Tony blinks, he's surrounded by stars. This place, he knows, and his chest goes tight—too tight—and his heart races.

This is what he saw when he went through the wormhole in New York. He's on the other side of space, except this time, there's sound, and he can hear people screaming.

Tony shuts his eyes tight and tightens his grip on his collection of strings. The green one stings the palm of his hand, and he's glad for it; it keeps him grounded, keeps him from getting lost in his own head. Keeps him from panicking.

This isn't the same. It isn't real. This is just Loki's magic inundating him with pictures, with things that aren't quite true. He is in his workshop. He probably hasn't moved from the scanner bed. This is Loki's magic. That's it.

It's just a trick.

Tony lets out a shaky breath and forces himself to open his eyes. The stars dance in front of his eyes, keeping time to the people screaming behind him.

Behind him.

He glances over his shoulder, but there's nothing there—just more of the same. Space and stars and screaming.

It's nothing. He knows it's nothing. Still, he can't stop himself from calling out, "Hello?"

He's answered, predictably, by more screaming, and he holds back a shudder and starts looking for a string. Every place so far has had a string, and they have to mean something—what, he's not sure—and he's determined to find out what. The sooner he finds the string for this place, the sooner he can get out of here and the sooner he'll be gone and somewhere else new and different and nowhere near as panic-inducing as space. Probably. He hopes.

He's on the verge of giving up and walking on (where, though? There's nowhere to go) when, finally, he sees a gold string hanging off what looks like a star. He furrows his brow, considering it. It's definitely semi-attached to a star, but the string looks pretty close—definitely closer than the star should be. Then again, all of this is born of Loki's magic, so the standard rules don't necessarily apply.

Tony reaches out and takes the string, but as soon as his fingers close on it, it jerks in his hand and makes him lose his footing. He stumbles, trips, and then starts to fall. He shouts, but his voice is lost among the screams—not that there's anyone around to hear him anyway, much less help him—and he continues to fall.

It seems to go on forever, and through it all Tony's chest burns as though he has the arc reactor embedded in him again, as though he has poison coursing through his veins, and through that pain his heart pounds and races so fast that he thinks it might give out altogether.

The screaming fades, space ends, and the darkness gets lighter and lighter until it's white, like a blank page, and then, finally, Tony stops falling.

He touches down on what must be the ground, although he can't see it—it blends in with the rest of the white—and presses a hand to his chest, reassuring himself that his heart is still beating and he's still alive, that everything is okay. It takes a while for his heart to stop racing, and he takes a few deep breaths to help it on its way.

It takes him a minute or two to hear the singing, and it takes even longer for him to realize that's what it is.

Tony turns in a circle, trying to find the source, but—just like with the screaming—there's nothing there but empty space. The singing is at least less discomforting than the alternative, so he can't complain too much, but, overall, Tony decides that he definitely hates magic. When he gets out of here—if he ever gets out of here—he and Loki are going to have to have a Talk.

Assuming Loki isn't still possessed and out to tear his head off his shoulders, that is.

Actually, maybe that's what this is. Maybe Loki has killed him and this is some kind of awful purgatory, and Tony will be stuck wandering and gathering bits of string until the universe ends. He doesn't believe in that sort of thing, really, but if someone had asked him ten years ago if he believed in magic, he would have said 'no,' and look at him now, building devices to control magical frequencies and using them to (hopefully) help save his skin.

The singing continues, and Tony shuts his eyes to listen. It's a woman singing, he thinks, and he doesn't know the words or the tune, but it's familiar nonetheless—like a long-forgotten lullaby, maybe. It sounds ancient, somehow, and some primal part of him wants to curl up and fall asleep to it.

Instead, he takes a step. Then another. And, as he does, the singing gets louder.

Tony opens his eyes and finds himself in a room arguably bigger than his workshop. The walls are lined with books and scrolls and strange little oddities—he thinks he sees feathers, maybe scraps of cloth, definitely a skull of some kind—and sunlight peeks around dark red curtains covering a large window.

The woman keeps singing, but Tony doesn't see her anywhere. All he sees is a large bed pushed up against one wall and a small, dark-haired boy sitting at the foot of it, paging through a book almost as big as the boy is wide.

It doesn't take long for Tony to realize where he is.

"Oh," he says, and the boy looks up, as though he's heard him.

The boy's green gaze passes over Tony as though he isn't even there, and once he's satisfied that he's alone, the boy marks his place with a red ribbon, shuts the book, and eases off his bed to go to the window. He fades away with every step until, finally, he's gone, and Tony is left alone.

The red ribbon spools off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, extending past where Tony is standing and disappearing into the shadows.

Tony picks it up.

The room fades away, back to white, but this time it's a white room, not just empty space, and there's furniture—a cot, a table, a chair. And, finally, there's Loki.

Tony considers him for a moment before he speaks. "The inside of your head is super weird."

Loki frowns at him. "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you. I mean, not literally. Are you trapped in here?" He pauses. "Are _we_ trapped in here? Is the Titan—"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, he still lingers." Loki spreads his hands as though to gesture around the room—and it's a prison cell, Tony realizes suddenly, although he's not sure how he knows that—and Tony sees that his arms and chest are bound with multi-colored strings. White. Blue. Black. Green. Gold. Just like the ones he's holding.

Tony looks down at the strings. "I don't get it."

"They're memories," Loki explains. "Painful ones. The Titan is using them to bind himself to me. To keep his hold so that he might control me."

"Oh. Is that all?" Tony frowns. "So let's just cut the strings and—"

"No."

"No?"

"No," Loki repeats. "It is the painful memories that help shape us."

Tony wrinkles his nose. "This is all getting way too metaphorical for me."

Loki laughs softly. "Ah," he says. "That explains it."

"It explains what?"

"The primary difference between my talents and yours. The trick to working seidr—magic, as you insist on calling it—is to tell a story that rings so much of truth that the universe itself tries to make fact."

"Meaning?"

"Magic is made entirely of metaphors."

"Well, science is made up of guesses and happy accidents," Tony says. "Sometimes there's an explosion or two, just to shake things up, but it's otherwise just asking questions and guessing until we find a consistent answer."

"Precisely."

He shakes his head. "Weird."

Loki shrugs. "Perhaps."

"No, trust me, it's weird." Tony falls quiet, thinking, and when he feels something tugging in his hand, he looks down. It's the ribbon. The other strings have all gone slack, but the ribbon is taught and tugging at him, urging him forward.

Forward where? Where else is there to go?

He looks back at Loki, considering him. There's no red in Loki's bindings. The ribbon isn't there. All of the other strings lead to Loki, but the ribbon...

"What does the Titan do with your happy memories?" he asks.

Loki blinks at him as he processes the question, and he frowns. "Nothing, I imagine. They're of little use to him. The Titan controls people with fear."

"Well, with that and ancient magic rocks."

Loki shrugs. "Yes."

"Effective." Tony moves to stand in front of Loki. "Hold out your arms."

Loki arches an eyebrow but does as he's told, holding his arms forward, toward Tony. When he does, the strings hanging off of him tighten, trying to bind him down. Loki resists, but Tony can tell it's hard—the strings dig grooves into the leather of his coat and constrict around Loki's chest. It's got to be painful, but Loki barely reacts; he lets out a soft hiss through his teeth, but otherwise makes no sound, and his face doesn't betray him in the slightest. Only his eyes—those same green eyes as the little boy in the bedroom—give him away.

Tony ties the red ribbon around one of Loki's wrist, then starts looping it up Loki's arm and across his shoulders before he loops down the other arm.

Loki's other eyebrow goes up to meet the first. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying out this metaphor thing." He finishes by tying the ribbon around Loki's other wrist. "How am I doing?"

"You should probably not stray too far from your comfort area."

"Don't be an asshole. I'm helping. I think." He steps back and watches, satisfied, as the other strings tying Loki down loosen, just enough to give Loki a little slack. "Well?"

Loki frowns, rolling his shoulders a bit. "What did you do?"

"The Titan uses the bad stuff to keep you tied to him." He tugs at his end of the ribbon, just a little. "I figure maybe you need some more of the good stuff to counterbalance him."

Loki furrows his brow. "You may find the 'good stuff' is in considerably shorter supply."

"Well, I never said it was a perfect plan. But we'll work on it." He takes a look around. "Think you'll be okay again when we get out of here?"

"Exhausted," Loki answers. "Weak. But myself, I think."

Tony nods. "We can work with that."

Loki looks at him. "We?"

"Well, sure. We're a team, remember?"

"Still? I not long ago attempted to kill you."

"Technically that wasn't you, but yeah. Still." He offers up a smile. "I'm not giving up that easy. I still have to keep my end of our deal, after all. And not just because if I don't, this Titan guy will probably take you over again and fighting him off will be that much harder."

Loki blinks at him, slowly, and then nods his head. "All right."

"Right," Tony says. "Good." He looks around, then back at Loki. "So how do we get out of here?"

"The magic has almost faded," Loki says. "When it does, we'll awaken from this dream state."

"And we'll remember all of this?"

"Most of it."

"Good enough." Tony lets go of the strings and unties the black one from his belt loop, but he keeps his hold on the red ribbon, just in case. "So, next steps?"

Loki shakes his head. "I do not know."

Tony looks down at the ribbon, then back at Loki. "I might," he says. "Maybe."


	14. Chapter 14

By the time the Avengers finally arrive, Tony and Loki have relocated to the living room couch and Loki has fallen asleep with his head in Tony's lap. Tony isn't entirely sure how it got there, but waking or trying to move Loki doesn't seem worth the effort, so he leaves it.

FRIDAY lets the Avengers in, per Tony's instructions, and Tony listens as they barrel through the house trying to find him. When they finally get to the living room, Tony shushes them.

"Keep it down," he chides. "Guy's trying to sleep."

The team—sans Vision, who Tony guesses wisely decided to sit this one out—pauses in the doorway, weapons still drawn and at the ready, and they all turn to stare at him. Even Thor seems surprised to see that Tony still has all of his limbs, and Tony tries not to feel insulted by that. Yes, he is a capable, fully functional adult and they should know that, but who knows what Vision told them? When he left, things still seemed pretty awful. Given that, it's really not that unreasonable for the team to have expected to find Tony as a corpse rather than as a makeshift pillow.

Steve is the first to recover, and he lowers his shield. "You're all right, then?"

"I'm fine."

Thor hooks Mjolnir to his belt. "All is well?"

Tony shrugs. "I guess you could say that."

Clint scowls. "You couldn't have left us know that and told us not to bother dragging ourselves all the way out here to save your ass? I was on my way home, you know, and I know you can access our comms still."

"Of course I can, because I'm a whiz kid. And because you should seriously change the frequency. Really. This is getting ridiculous." That said, if he's being honest, it really just didn't occur to him to call off the Avengers after he and Loki finally made it back to the real world. Still, it's not all bad. It'll save him a little time in the long run. "I wanted to talk to you guys anyway."

Steve talks over him. "Vision said you were quitting the team."

"I'm not... All right. Yes. Kind of." Tony frowns. "Look, the thing is, you sent me here to figure out what Loki is doing, and I did that, sort of, but now we're all tripping over ourselves and getting in each other's way, and it doesn't have to be that way. Loki's... It's complicated, but he's really not so bad a guy. I can't tell you anything else about it, so you're just going to have to trust me on that one. But Loki is doing something important and I'm helping him, and I can't do it with you guys constantly breathing down my neck. So yeah, I'm off the team. Temporarily."

Somewhat predictably, Clint balks first. "You're siding with him?"

"I'm not siding with anybody. I'm helping him."

"How is that different?"

"It just is." He combs his fingers through his hair. "That's not even what I wanted to talk to you guys about. I need a favor. Two favors, actually."

Clint frowns at him. "Why should we do you any favors?"

Tony tries not to roll his eyes. He does anyway. "I'll let you hit me in the face if you want, will that make you feel better? Just hear me out."

"I'll punch you," Rhodes offers. "I owe you one anyway."

"Rhodey, come on. Is this about that time when I blew up your thesis project at MIT? I apologized for that."

"No, you didn't."

"Of course I did. I bought you a beer, didn't I?"

"Right, yeah, how could I forget? A whole beer. That was really big of you."

Sam shakes his head. "If we could get back to business? Come on, I've got places to be."

Steve nods his agreement. "Right. What is it, Tony? What do you need?"

"Two things, like I said." Tony holds up two fingers. "First off, I need you to stop sending Vision over to check in on me. It's just sad. I can handle this without the babysitter."

Steve and Thor exchange a look, but, finally, Steve nods. "Seems fair. Especially since you aren't on the team anymore."

"Technically," Tony clarifies. "Second thing." He points at Wanda. "You. You keep your heeby jeebies away from Loki, got it? It's better for everybody that way. He's got enough nightmare fuel to last him a long while and he doesn't need you giving his bad thoughts even more power over him."

Wanda furrows her brow. "But if I cannot fight—"

He cuts her off. "Oh, you can fight him all you want. Just none of your weird mind games. Not with him. Whatever else you've got, go wild. It'll be exciting. Just don't mess with his head."

"I do not—"

"Then figure something out. Expand your repertoire. It'll be good for you." He huffs a breath. "You don't want to mess around in there anyway."

Thor tilts his head to one side, watching him. "You are worried about him," he says. "Why?"

He shouldn't have to answer that. Thor is Loki's brother; shouldn't he know something is up? Shouldn't he be able to tell when something is wrong? Tony's never had a brother to know for himself just how deep that bond runs, but he feels like it should at least count for something. Honestly, he kind of can't believe Thor didn't realize something was off with Loki in the first place—back in New York, maybe, or at least after they made it back to Asgard. He's known Loki his entire life; meanwhile, Tony's only really known him just a few days and it didn't take him nearly as long to figure out Loki wasn't entirely acting on his own volition.

"Someone has to," he says, finally. He can tell Thor doesn't like that answer, but he ignores the pinched look the thunder god gives him in favor of looking down at Loki, who is still asleep. Or, in any case, is feigning sleep; Tony doesn't miss the small upward quirk at the corner of Loki's mouth. The bastard is enjoying this.

When he looks up again, he meets Natasha's gaze. She considers him, silent, and then arches an eyebrow. He's not sure what that's supposed to mean, so he frowns at her. She shakes her head.

"Be careful, Stark."

"I'm always careful."

"No, you aren't." She jerked her head back toward the living room. "Come on, let's get out of here. He's not an Avenger anymore—he's a private citizen—and we shouldn't be here."

"He's a wanted criminal," Clint points out.

Natasha ignores him. "We're leaving," she says, and she rests a hand on Clint's arm, guiding him away. He goes, reluctantly, but not before he casts an accusatory look over his shoulder, toward Tony. It stings, but Tony doesn't dare avert his eyes. If it will make Clint feel better—make this small betrayal hurt a bit less—then he can take it.

He'll make it up to him later, somehow. He's not sure how, but he'll think of something.

Sam follows Natasha and Clint out, and he doesn't look back. Tony doesn't expect him to; he barely knows the guy, after all, and he's not sure Sam cares one way or the other that Tony has decided to join the dark side.

Wanda considers him. "People, they will get hurt," she says. "Won't they?"

"People get hurt every day," Tony says, knowing full well that that isn't an answer. "But it's not like we're going to try and hurt them on purpose." Probably. He's not sure what Loki's plans are, exactly, but he's mostly sure he can talk Loki out of intentionally hunting down innocent bystanders, if it does come up. And if people do get hurt... Well, he hates to think of it like this, but maybe it's the price they have to pay to make sure more people don't get hurt later, when the Titan does show up. Whenever that might be.

Wanda frowns and doesn't look completely satisfied by his answer, but she leaves without another word. For his part, Rhodes considers Tony a while before he steps forward, claps Tony on the shoulder, and then disappears out the door.

Steve and Thor stay behind. After a long stretch of silence, Steve sighs.

"You're up to something," he says.

Tony shrugs. "I'm always up to something."

That makes Thor chuckle, at least. "My brother is wearing off on you," he says by way of explanation. "That is something he would say."

Tony glances down at Loki, who hasn't moved. He's either fallen asleep again or he's really, really good at faking it. Tony has his suspicions. "Well," he says, "he's usually up to something, too."

Steve frowns. "I don't like it. Whatever this is, I don't understand why you can't just tell us what's going on. We could help."

Tony shakes his head. "If I told you what was going on, it would ruin everything. Trust me on this one."

"I'm trying to," Steve says, "but you're not giving us a lot to work with."

"Hey now, that's not true. Give me a little credit. I'm giving you guys Stark Industries, aren't I?"

Steve frowns. "Are you?"

Honestly, he wasn't planning on it, but now that he thinks about it, it just makes sense. "Sure. I mean, SHIELD isn't going to do anything to save my position on the board or anything, so I might as well sell my shares cheap now, let you guys keep my seat warm for me. Pepper's still the boss, so what she says goes, but hey, a little paperwork, a couple signatures, and my shares are all yours. It's a tidy little nest egg, and it'll keep the Avengers funded and running for a while longer. Just keep SHIELD out of my business and try not to go to too many board meetings. I've only been to two or three of them myself, but they're pretty tedious. Don't recommend. Also, keep my name on the building if you can. Buying all new stationery, pens, all of that, it's just a pain in the ass. I'd rather not have to deal with it unless I have to."

"And what will you do?"

Tony shrugs. "What do I need with a few million hypothetical dollars? I'm flush. Don't worry. I'm not going to go hungry or anything any time soon."

"I guess not."

Thor shakes his head. "I still don't fully understand this. You are forsaking us for Loki, so I presume there is cause, but I see no reason why—"

"It has to do with the Infinity Stones," Tony interrupts. "And it's complicated. Really complicated."

"Vision mentioned that Loki attacked you," Thor says. "That does not sway your decision at all?"

Tony's pretty sure Loki's losing his mind and going after him made up his mind for him, actually, but he doesn't say that. He just smiles. "I've got this," he assures them. "I'll see you guys across the battlefield or something. It'll be great, like a big party. I'll bring the paparazzi."

That gets a smile out of Steve, which is really good enough for Tony, and Captain America nods his head to Thor. "We'd better go before Clint leaves without us," he says.

Thor nods. "Aye." He looks back to Tony. "Be careful with my brother, Tony Stark."

Tony pauses. "I will, but do you mean that in the sense that I should be careful _with_ him or be careful _of_ him?"

"There's really no difference," Thor answers, and he and Steve leave Tony alone.

Well, almost alone. There is still the matter of the probably fake-sleeping chaos god to attend to.

Tony nudges Loki's shoulder with his knee. "Hey. Asshole, I know you're awake."

"No you don't."

"Well, I do now." He shifts slightly. "How are you feeling?"

Loki opts not to answer him. He opens his eyes to consider Tony. "You have cut ties with your team," he observes. "Do you regret it?"

Tony shakes his head. "Nah. I mean, I'm feeling a little sentimental, I guess, but it's a little too soon for regrets, don't you think?"

"In my experience, it is never too soon for that."

Tony frowns. "Yeah, your experiences blow. I think we should start off working on that."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning we need to drown out some of your bad memories with some good ones." He taps his fingertip against Loki's forehead. "Maybe that will help get you free of the Titan."

Loki reaches up and catches Tony's finger, keeping it still. "It may not work."

"That's what you said about the last thing we tried."

"And it, too, did not work."

"Well, no, it didn't work like I planned it to work," Tony admits. "But it still worked. In that it was educational, I mean. In its own way. And that's what science is all about, remember? Making mistakes until we get it right?"

"Mm." Loki lets go of Tony's finger and closes his eyes. "It is messier than metaphors."

Tony smiles. "Yeah, a little." He is quiet for a while, and then he exhales. "How much time do you think we have before the Titan shows up?"

Loki takes his time in answering. "Less than we would like."

That's not a surprise. The Titan could be years away—centuries—and it wouldn't feel like enough. They have a lot of work to do before they're anywhere near ready. Tony knows that now. Untangling Loki from everything the Titan bound him with is just a start, and preparing the Avengers for the ultimate battle is only the first of many steps. They might not be able to do it. They could fail spectacularly. The odds of that happening, in fact, are stacked pretty high.

But, well, it's not like there's much of an alternative, short of closing their eyes, clapping their hands over their ears, and pretending like they don't know the end of the universe might be just around the corner, so they might as well give it a shot.

Tony nods. "In that case," he says, "I guess we'd better get started."

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"One good experience at a time," Tony suggests, and even though he knows this will complicate things—for him and for Loki, probably—and he'll have to figure out how to explain this to Pepper (and to Rhodes, who will probably never let him forget it), he decides it's maybe time for Plan B. He leans down and kisses Loki.

When he draws away, Loki blinks at him. "I presume you mean to imply you are capable of being a good experience?"

"You tell me."

Loki arches an eyebrow. "Just today, I attacked you in your workshop," he says, and it isn't really an answer. Typical.

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, that was weird. But after that, I spent the better part of today literally inside your head, so we can say we're even. And we've got to start somewhere, right?"

Loki considers him, not moving from where he is half-lying in Tony's lap, and then shuts his eyes. "I suppose we must," he says, which—again—isn't really an answer at all.

That's all right, though. The small curve of Loki's mouth—the ghost of a smile—is all the answer Tony needs right now.

Tony nods, satisfied. "Yeah," he says. "I suppose so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably going to be the first in a series (oy), so stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the FrostIron Bang 2014 project. The art that accompanies this story was drawn by Graffiti2DMyHeart and is available at http://graffiti2dmyheart.tumblr.com/post/133579626750/yo-heres-my-artist-addition-to-this-years.
> 
> As always, my eternal gratitude goes to Jay, who is by turn my best cheerleader, critic, and drill sergeant. I would never have been able to finish this without her.


End file.
